Fires can break out at any time, so it’s imperative to have an emergency escape plan in place to protect you and your family. We recommend practicing this escape plan twice a year. An in-home fire escape plan includes preparing every member of your family – from the youngest to the oldest. Fires will destroy everything in their path, making exceptions for nothing and no one.
Check Your Smoke Alarms
Your smoke alarms should be one of the best ways to detect a fire (or the potential for fire) in your home. If a room gets smoky enough, your smoke alarm should go off. Make sure your smoke alarms have batteries and test them once a month to ensure they work. Hopefully, if your smoke alarm goes off, it’s because you burned something on the stove. But always pay attention when a smoke alarm goes off. It could be alerting you to a fire.
Teach Children About Fires
Every child should know how dangerous fires are. One of the best ways to teach them about fires is through the smoke alarm. Children should hear a smoke alarm to know what it sounds like in a non-emergency setting. Teach them your emergency escape plan in case the smoke alarm goes off.
Have Two Escape Routes
You should have two escape routes for every room in your house. The room’s door should be the first escape route. If you live in a bedroom in the basement, you should have a ladder that allows you to climb to the surface level. Likewise, you should have a ladder to climb down from an upstairs window.
Establish Emergency Communication
What about emergency communication during a fire? Escaping from the fire should be everyone’s top priority. You should call 911 to alert the fire department and then contact everyone who lives in your home to ensure they’re safe. You should reach out to everyone, even if they’re not home or if you aren’t sure if they’re home. It’s also critical to tell the fire department if someone is stuck inside the house.
You should give your neighbors your contact information so that they can alert you if your home catches on fire. You wouldn’t want to show up at your house after the fire department has arrived and not know what’s going on.
Stop, Drop, and Roll
So what happens if you can’t escape or if your clothes catch on fire while you’re trying to escape? That’s where stop, drop and roll come into play. Pause your escape plan for long enough to drop to the ground. Cover your eyes and mouth with your hands and roll your body on the floor.
Roll over and over again until the fire is out. Only stop, droll, and roll if your clothes are on fire. Burning your body is not a reason to stop, drop, and roll. If you continue to escape while there’s fire on your clothes, you could end up with horrible burns that damage your nerves and leave you with permanent scars.
Damage to Your Home
If your home catches on fire, it’s likely to need repair. Black Diamond Water Damage & Disaster Restoration specializes in restoring your home from fire damage. We have decades of experience to mitigate further damage and repairing what the fire destroyed. Contact us today to get started.
