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A home fire spreads rapidly, leaving you and your family only minutes to escape safely once the smoke alarm sounds. It’s essential to have a set plan in place to ensure that everyone knows what to do if a fire breaks out. Creating an escape plan before disaster arrives and practicing frequently can actually save your family’s lives.
Creating and executing this plan needs to be as simple as possible for everyone involved. By doing this, the steps are easy to follow for everyone and will not be forgotten if a fire occurs. Additionally, the steps must be executed quickly, within two minutes of the alarm going off or when the fire is noticed.
Before you can teach your children a fire escape plan, educating them on fire safety in your home is important if you have not done so already. Show them what the smoke alarm sounds like and what it means when it goes off. Teach them how to check door handles to prevent them from burning themselves. They will also need to know to stay low enough to avoid gas inhalation. Teach them NEVER to go back into the house (once they are outside, they must stay outside!). If they must use an escape ladder, ensure they know how to use it safely.
An escape plan must be quick, simple, and easily adaptable. During a fire outbreak, the conditions of your home may make the escape plan harder to carry out than initially taught. Keeping this in mind, there are a few essential rules to remember when creating the plan. First, there must be more than one exit out of any room in the house in case one is blocked in some way. Everyone must be able to get low on the ground in the escape plan in order to avoid smoke inhalation. There must also be an agreed-upon meeting place that everyone can identify. If there are young children or those who need assistance, incorporate that into the plan. Make sure that everyone knows who is in charge of helping them make it outside safely.
Once you have come up with your at-home fire escape plan, it will need to be practiced frequently to ensure that it stays fresh in everyone’s minds. Practicing often will ensure that it will be second nature and no one will forget it in the stressful event of a fire. Start by walking through the plan with everyone to ensure that everyone understands how it works. This eliminates any confusion, and you can see if it actually works for everyone. Practice the escape until everyone can complete it without help. Once everyone knows how it works and where to go, you can move on to regular fire drills. Make sure to do these at least twice yearly to refresh everyone’s memories frequently.
Knowing how to get out and what to do afterward is essential if a fire occurs in your home. The most crucial part is to ensure that everyone gets out safely. After that, what do you do? How can you possibly recover? Fortunately, you are not left alone to figure out fire damage restoration. Professionals at Clean Image Services are readily available around the clock to help you recover from a devastating event.
