If your house caught fire would you and everyone in your home know exactly where to go and what to do? If your answer is “No”, then it’s probably time you made a plan. Leigh McGivern is a Home Fire Safety educator with Pella Windows and Doors.
Leigh: The first step in making your home fire escape plan is to gather your family together and sit down and look at the floor plan of the home and decide which exits out of each room, a door and a window, your supposed to have two escape routes out of each room and make sure you plan that with everybody in your family, from the youngest to the oldest.
Michael: They spend some time looking at the plan learning it to heart, know how to get out on an emergency.
Leigh: Absolutely, and share it with visitors who come to your home, or baby sitters who come to your home.
Michael: And now this is a new house we have a floor plan, but if we don’t we just sketch one out.
Leigh: Absolutely, just take some grid paper from the office supply store and sketch out your home, make sure you have one grid for each level of your home and mark all of the windows and doors out of each room.
Michael: Okay, now the first thing I want to think about is smoke detectors. When they think about fire and they feel that they’re automatically safe, is that correct?
Leigh: Well, it’s not actually true, smoke detectors are a wonderful tool and make sure that you have one on every level of your home, and in your grid you make sure that you mark the location of each smoke detector with a little SA but the smoke detectors have their limitations as well. You need to make sure that the batteries are fresh, they stay fresh, so test it every month.
Michael: Every month.
Leigh: Every month.
Michael: Okay.
Leigh: And make sure that if you’ve got a smoke detector, that it’s not hard wired to your electrical system, that it needs to be changed out at least every 10 years, you can test them, they have little test buttons on here, you just test it by pushing it and make sure everybody knows what that smoke detector sounds like so that in the middle of the night when there’s smoke, when people are frightened, that they know what that alarm is and they know to get out.
Michael: Okay so press the button and test the battery every month but replace the detector itself at least every 10 years.
Leigh: Every 10 years.
Michael: Okay then how about fire extinguishers, you have a couple of sizes and different units there.
Leigh: Fire extinguishers are a wonderful tool as well, to make sure that you can fight a fire if you need to within your home, however, they do have their limitations. They have designations A, B, and C or B and C, that just tells you that it’s good to fight a fire that’s electrical fire or an office fire, paper fire or grease fire. And make sure that you know how to use a fire extinguisher. It’s very important to remember the acronym PASS, okay. Pull the pin, Aim the nozzle, Squeeze, and Spray.
Michael: PASS…P-A-S-S.
Leigh: P-A-S-S.
Michael: Okay and we’re in the kitchen and a lot of fires happen in the kitchen, which type would we get for in here?
Leigh: B and C would probably be the best, that flame retardant that is A is not very good for laying down over appliances.
Michael: Okay so B, C in our kitchens and then I noticed something that really helped us beyond the fire extinguisher, in this house they actually have a sprinkler system.
Leigh: That’s a wonderful tool, if you’re building a new home it’s very affordable to build it into your new home.
Michael: Yeah you’re only talking about a dollar, dollar fifty a foot to install sprinkler system.
Leigh: Absolutely.
Michael: Now this house is a two storey and I know there are certain things we just have to take into consideration, we go upstairs, it’s a little different from the first floors, so, let’s go take a look.
Leigh: Okay. Michael we’re in the 2nd storey bedroom and basically, usually bedrooms are all clustered around one central hallway, and there’s one smoke detector outside where everybody can hear it. In a second storey bedroom you’ve gone through, when you walk through your grid, you’re walking to it to make sure that all of the escape routes that you’ve marked, both doors and windows, open easily, they’re not nailed or painted shot.
Michael: Which is very common for an older home.
Leigh: It definitely is and you definitely want to make sure also if you live in the city, and you’ve got safety bars, you want to make sure that there is a quick release mechanism that everybody knows how to open.
Michael: Okay well if we get the window open, and we still got the problem of we’re on the second floor, and we don’t have a bush or a shrub to jump into down there so, what is the plan to get down safely?
Leigh: Basically, just open the window as the manufacturer instructs, you’ve got a handy safety ladder stored where everybody knows where it is, make sure you read the manufacturer’s instructions, just open up the ladder, hang this over the edge of the window, unfurl the ladder and you’re good to go.
Michael: And it’s light enough as it looks like that even a child could pick this and throw it over the window.
Leigh: It’s very light weight and make sure you have one for every bedroom on the second floor.
Michael: How often should we practice?
Leigh: You should practice your fire escape plan with your family and visitors at least twice a year. Make sure everybody knows where that pre-arranged meeting place outside the home, a good distance away so you can do a head count after you’ve done your plan and call 911, and never ever go back inside a burning building.
Michael: Thanks for the great advice.
For more information on family safety and home fire protection visit us on the internet at MichaelHoligan.com
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