Practice Your Escape Plan - The City of Red Deer

Your ability to get out depends on advance warning from smoke alarms and advance planning.
Only one-fifth to one-fourth of households (23 %) have actually developed and practiced a home fire escape plan to ensure they could escape quickly and safely. Fire can spread rapidly through your home. Too often we do not respect the power of fire. In as little as three minutes a small fire can reach temperatures over 1000 degrees Celsius. In Alberta, 20% of those that died in home fires did not react to the smoke alarm sounding.

So pull everyone together in your household and make a plan that everyone in your family is familiar with and has practiced.

For easy planning, download this escape planning grid. This is a great way to get children involved in fire safety in a non-threatening way.

Develop a home escape plan and practice it with everyone in the home

Draw a floor plan of your entire house.
Show all possible exits from your home.
Know at least TWO ways out of every bedroom.
Have a meeting spot outside that everyone is familiar with.
Have someone press the test button of the smoke alarm with everyone else in bed.
When the alarm goes off, crawl out of bed to the floor where the air quality is better (smoke rises) and make your way to the door.
Check the door with your hand by feeling the door handle to see if it is hot.
If the door handle or door is not hot, open the door slowly. It you encounter smoke or heat, close the door immediately and use your second way out.
If there is no smoke after you open the door, proceed to the nearest exit and go to your meeting spot. By going to your planned meeting spot, everyone will know that you are safe.
If you are trapped, protect yourself until help arrives. Block all cracks along the door with blankets or clothing to keep the smoke out. Go to a window and signal for help. Remember, if you did not go to the meeting spot, someone will know you're still in the house. Help is on the way.
Once everyone is out, go to the nearest phone and call 911 for help.

NEVER go back into the house once you are outside. No personal possession is worth your life.

Fire Safety Tips

Install smoke alarms in every sleeping room, outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home.
Choose an outside meeting place (i.e. neighbours house, a light post, mailbox, or stop sign) a safe distance in front of your home where everyone can meet after they've escaped. Make sure to mark the location of the meeting place on your escape plan.
Go outside to see if your house number is clearly visible from the road. If not, install house numbers to ensure that responding emergency personnel can find your home.
9-1-1 for fire, police, ambulance. Make sure everyone knows the emergency phone number.
If there are infants, older adults, or family members with mobility limitations, make sure that someone is assigned to assist them in the fire drill and in the event of an emergency.
Security bars or steel screens on doors and windows that don’t come with a quick release mechanism could keep you trapped inside during a fire, or prevent emergency personnel from being able to enter your home to rescue you. Make sure all doors and bedroom windows can be opened from the inside without keys, special devices, or knowledge.
If you have to break a window to escape be sure to put blankets over the windowsill to protect yourself from the broken glass. A Fire Escape Ladder may assist in getting you out of a second story window and to the ground safely.
To escape safely from a home fire you've got to make sure that everyone in the home knows the plan and has practiced it. Take this Fire Prevention Quiz and see how many questions you can answer correctly. Good luck!