How a Home Fire Safety Plan Can Protect Your Family

11/27/2019 (Permalink)

Once you have completed a few drills, it can be useful to run a surprise drill to simulate an actual emergency.

It’s hard to imagine a fire happening in your Colorado home. Fires can be devastating, and bolstering your fire readiness with a fire escape plan is the key to protecting your property and your family. This discussion may help you formulate the best plan for your situation.

Designing Your Fire-Readiness Plan

Organizing a safety meeting for your family is the first step. The goal is to create an emergency escape plan that will enable everyone to evacuate the house safely and quickly. Consider the following suggestions:

Walking through the house with your family will allow you to identify two exits from each room.
Placing an escape ladder in upper-story rooms will ensure window evacuation is possible.
Setting a meeting place across or down the street will allow you to account for all family members after an evacuation.

Checking the visibility of your house number from the road will help fire services locate you.
Posting a map in the house that clearly locates the meeting place and escape routes can be a helpful reference.

Once you have created your fire escape plan, it may ease your mind to have a local fire remediation expert review it. You are then ready to test your plan.

Testing Your Evacuation Plan

Scheduling home fire drills is the best way to practice your plan. It’s recommended to have a drill twice a year, with every family member participating. It may help to start with a daytime drill, so escape routes are visible. For the first night time drill, you can give your family some warning then, during the night, begin the drill by pressing the test button on your smoke alarm. 

If you should have a home fire, a comprehensive fire escape plan will help ensure you are able to quickly evacuate your home. When your family has practiced the plan, they will likely be calmer in the confusion of an actual emergency. The sooner you can evacuate and call for help, the sooner the situation can be under control.