PREPARE FOR A FIRE

• If some alarms are not already in place, install them outside each sleeping area and on each additional level of your home in accordance with local codes. Smoke alarms cut your chances of dying in a home fire nearly in half. Smoke alarms sense abnormal amounts of smoke or invisible combustion gases in the air. They can detect both smoldering and flaming fires.
  
  
• Draw a floor plan of your home; mark two fire escape routes for each room. In thick, heavy, dark smoke it is easy to become disoriented. Creating a floor plan with two routes greatly helps everyone understand the safest routes during a frightening emergency.
  
  
• Select a safe outside meeting place for everyone to meet after escaping from a fire. Make sure it will be a safe distance from heat, smoke and flames. Family members may use different escape routes, exiting on different sides of the home. Gathering in a specific meeting place in front of the home will quickly let you know who is out, and allow you to advise firefighters of who may need help and their probable location inside.
  
  
• Consider escape ladders for sleeping areas on the second or third floor. Learn how to use them, and store them near the window. If main escape routes via stairs are blocked by smoke or fire, the windows may e your only alternative. Escape ladders permit quick exits, reducing time spent in smoke-filled, toxic environments while waiting for firefighters.
  
  
• Burglar bars and locks that block outside window entry must be easy to open from the inside. If a key is required to open bars or locks, keep a key near each window to use for fire escape. Quick-release devices are available for security bars. If smoke or fire is blocking the main exit, you must be able to use your alternate routes quickly. Fire deaths have occurred when people were trapped by security bars and were unable to get out and firefighters unable to get in.
  
  
• Conduct a home fire drill at least twice a year with all members of your household. Fires produce thick, dark smoke that irritates the eyes and breathing passages and can cause confusion. People who have become disoriented in fires have been found in closets, stairwells and laundry rooms, thinking they were exits. Practicing your plan makes the actual response more of an appropriate reaction, requiring less thinking during an emergency situation.

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