If you want to practice good fire safety, then you are going to need to have a plan in place. If your home or workshop should ever happen to catch fire, you are not going to have much time with which to escape. Smoke fumes are capable of incapacitating a grown adult in as little as two minutes, and a child may be rendered unconscious much more quickly than this. For this reason alone, it is vitally essential that every member of your household be aware of the steps to take, where to go and how they can escape a fire in the home.

Commit the Plan to Paper

When you are developing a plan for escaping a fire, you should draw out a diagram of the home. Make sure that the diagram is large enough that it is visible, such as by putting it on poster board for example. You do not have to be an artist, but you do want your drawing to be as accurate as it possibly can while keeping it simple to understand. You should always indicate at least two different possible exits from every room in the home. Make sure that you use windows as one option, and make sure that your children are aware of how to unlock and open windows so that they can exit through them.

You may even want to place a picture of each child on the diagram. Diagram drawings are sometimes difficult for young children to understand, but using a picture of the child on your drawing is going to enable them to know where their room is and what steps they need to take in order to escape from that place in the house.

Once this diagram has been completed, you are going to want to place it somewhere that it is easily viewable to every member of the family such as the kitchen or a hallway. Make sure that everybody knows where it is so that they can view it on a regular basis. Additionally you may want to create smaller copies that can be posted on the back of every door so that the plan can be committed to memory by every member of your household.

Additionally, you are going to want to sit down with your entire family so that you can arrange for a meeting place that everyone can use upon fleeing from the fire. Once everyone has exited the home safely, your family members can go to this safe meeting place. Make sure that every member of your home knows where the location is, and make sure that the location is far away enough from the home that nobody is going to be in danger by being there.

One final note: Practice makes perfect when it comes to things like this, so go over your fire preparedness plan with your family on a regular basis.

Photo Credits: Cayusa

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Handy Man, Safety

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drawing, drawings, fire safety, good fire, grown adult, hallway, household, member of the family, memory, poster board, two minutes