What should u do when your house is on FIRE!

If there is a fire in your house, please calm down. The first priority is safety and as such, it is always important to have planned for any eventuality in advance. After you've read this article, consider using it as a motivational tool to enthuse the family into a fire planning evening -- draw up a plan of what you would all do if a fire started in your home, including exit spots and where you'd meet up once outside.


1. React when you hear your smoke alarm.
If you hear your smoke detector or alarm going off don’t get nervous, you should get out from your bed, and run out from your house!

2. Use the door.
If your door is open and there is a fire preventing you from exiting the room, close the door to protect yourself from the fire, and follow the "hot door" procedures below. Otherwise, treat it as a "cool door".

3. Feel the door.

• If your door is closed, feel it for heat with the back of your hand, NOT as shown in this picture.

• If you feel down towards the bottom of the door and it is really cool, that's good. Open it slowly and take a look at the conditions on the other side. If there is a lot of smoke and it's banked up towards the ceiling area, stay lower to the ground and crawl to get yourself out. If you are able to get out, also go through and yell for other people to get out of the house. Wake everyone up, get the kids out of bed, and get outside as quickly as you can.

• If you feel the door and it is hot, there is a lot of heat on the other side. Do not open it; use a second way out. If there is no safe door, go over the window and try to get out of the house that way.

4. Know what to do if your exit is blocked by fire.

You should always have two means of exiting the building. If you cannot get out the front door, what are the secondary escape routes? Think about whether it is a window or a different door. You should always make an escape plan with your family.

5. Escape from a second story window.

• If you have a two-story house, you should have an escape ladder that you can throw out in case a fire or other problem happens.
• If you are trapped in your second story room in the event of a fire, do what you can to get yourself to an area where people will be able to hear you or see you. You can take a sheet or something else - white preferably - and hang it out the window to signify that you need help when the first responders get there. Be sure to open the window -- leaving it open draws the fire towards the fresh oxygen. Put something down to prevent the smoke from coming underneath the door, such as a towel or anything that you can find.

• If you really must get out of the window, look for a ledge and if there is a ledge, you can get yourself out onto the ledge facing the building. Always face the building structure when exiting a window on an upper floor. From a second story, if you have to hang, you might get closer to the ground and you could potentially let go and fall to safety. However, the truth of the matter is that you are probably a lot safer staying put and trying to compartmentalize by closing doors between you and the fire, prevent the smoke from coming into the room, putting something over your nose and mouth to filter the air and hoping for the best.

6. Protect yourself from smoke inhalation when inside.

Take a t-shirt or a rag and wet it. Place it over your nose and mouth. This will only buy you a minute or so, which is not a lot of time, but it does help to filter those products of combustion which lead to smoke inhalation. Smoke inhalation causes people to become disoriented and can even render a person unconscious. Knowing this, you should cover your nose and mouth if you have to walk by or through a heavily smoke-filled room.

7. Account for everyone and call for help once you are out.
Have a pre-determined meeting place for all family members.

• Do a head count. If anybody is missing, only re-enter the building if it is safe to do so. Tell the first responders immediately on their arrival if you are afraid somebody is missing. Likewise, if everybody is accounted for, let the fire responders know so that they're not sending people in endangering their lives looking for others.
• Call your local emergency services number. Call 911 in North America, 000 in Australia, 111 in New Zealand and 999 in the UK or 112 from your mobile (this number has priority on the mobile phone network in the UK as too many 999 calls are made unintentionally) 112 is the emergency number in all of Europe and will be directed to the local emergency number by the network if necessary. Use your cellphone or call from a neighbor's house.
• Do an assessment. After making the call and the resources are coming, it is time to check yourself and family members to make sure that there are no injuries. If there are, do what you can to address that and when the fire department arrives, you can ask for directions and help.

8. Get away from the structure.

Keep a safe distance between you and the fire. Read Know What to Do Following a House Fire to follow up after a house fire.

Tips.

• If there is a fire in your house, please calm down. The first priority is safety and as such, it is always important to have planned for any eventuality in advance. After you've read this article, consider using it as a motivational tool to enthuse the family into a fire planning evening -- draw up a plan of what you would all do if a fire started in your home, including exit spots and where you'd meet up once outside.
• Practice your escape plan with the whole family! It may never happen but nobody can ever know for sure and it is better to be safe than sorry.
• If you are on fire "stop, drop, and roll AND cover your face".
• Have safety equipment maintained and in easily found locations, including fire extinguishers and safety ladders (and know how to use them). Have all extinguishers checked regularly (once a year is good) and replace if defective.
• Make sure your smoke detectors work. A good way to remember is to change your batteries when you change your clocks for daylight savings (in areas that do that).
• Feeling a door for heat: Use the back of your hand to feel a door for heat, not the palm or fingers. The back of your hand has more nerve endings than your palm, allowing you to accurately determine the temperature of an object without actually contacting it. Also, doors can get hot enough to burn you without appearing very hot at all. You may later need to use your palms or fingers to help you escape.
• Make sure you test your smoke detectors regularly! They should be changed every 5 years. Don't go back inside.

Take note.

• The most important rule, before all else, is to stay low! Hot smoke, be it toxic, scorching, or both, rises so keeping close to the floor can help you avoid inhaling or being burnt by smoke that might have already entered the room. If the room is clear of smoke then you may stand but be careful upon entering any new space to avoid the same danger.
• In a fire, it is often impossible to get from one part of a dwelling to another. Consequently, every member of the household old enough to do so MUST know how to get out of every room in the place even if the usual doors are inaccessible.
• Make sure everyone knows where to go after escaping. Set a specific location, far enough from the building to be safe, but close enough to get to easily and quickly. Make sure that everyone knows to go directly to that meeting spot, and stay there until everyone is accounted for.
• Do not reenter a burning building. Forget everything that you have seen in movies and TV shows depicting the hero rushing into the flames to make a rescue. That only happens in movies. In the real world, people who reenter burning buildings frequently die within a few feet of the point at which they entered. Going back into the building will only mean one more victim for the fire fighters to have to look for.