Do You Have A Fire Escape Plan For Your Family?

10/21/2020 (Permalink)

Living in the moment is a great way to savor your daily life and everything that occurs within it, but it’s integral to plan ahead for potential future emergencies to ensure that the best outcome possible occurs to the best of your ability if things don’t go to plan. Emergencies are never desirable, but anticipating them and preparing your family to face them ensures that they know what to do when bad things happen. Fires, in particular, can occur out of nowhere, and creating a family fire escape plan will empower everyone to act in the event that a fire takes place, no matter who they’re with or where they are in your home.

The last thing that you want to happen is for one of your family members to be trapped by a fire in your home with no means of escape, and crafting and sharing a fire escape plan can help you avoid this scenario. Creating a fire escape plan and walking through it with your family may prove life-saving in the future, and here’s how to do that. 

1. Draw your home floor plan. 

Make sure you label all the doors and windows as well as every room in your house and plan at least two escape routes from every room. Account for all your family members’ disabilities and create alternative escape routes as necessary. 

2. Plan a meeting place near your home.

Designate a spot near your home for a family meeting place when a fire occurs. As you may be separated from your other family members when a fire occurs, it’s important to regroup and get a headcount after escaping from your home that’s ablaze. 

3. Tell your kids to call 9-1-1 for help. 

No matter how old your kids are, it’s important to tell them to dial 9-1-1 when a fire happens as soon as they’re capable of comprehending how to do so. This is essential, especially if no adults are home at the time of the fire. 

4. Run through your fire escape plan.

Walk with your family from room to room in your house and verbally talk through the instructions on how to escape. Maybe even practice escaping if it is easy and safe to do so. Try sounding the fire alarm to get your family in the right mindset and to associate leaving the house with the alarm sounding. 

In addition to the above steps, remember to educate your family on stop-drop-and-roll protocol if they catch fire and to check the doors for heat to see if they should open them or not after your fire alarm sounds. Regularly change the batteries of all your smoke detectors as well so they sound when signs of a fire are evident. 

If you experience a fire at home or at your business, first dial 9-1-1, and after the fire is extinguished, call (615) 242-9391 for SERVPRO of Belle Meade/West Nashville’s trained technicians to restore all the fire damage that has occurred. In addition to repairing and restoring anything damaged by heat and flames, we also remove all the soot, ash, and smoke from the fire as well as deodorize your property.