Fire Escape Plans

Fire Escape Plans are the ultimate tool to ensure the safety of your family. Do you have one?

In the event of a fire, everyone must know where to go when the smoke alarm sounds. Make a fire escape plan today and ensure your family's safety well into tomorrow.

The First Step:

Draw a floor plan of your home. Include all possible emergency exits, like windows and doors. Draw two different ways to escape from every room in the house, if possible. As a daily reminder, hang this drawing in a place where it is viewable to the entire family.

The Second Step:

Choose a meeting place outside. The meeting place should be a safe distance away from your home and be memorable to everyone in the house. Pick a tree, a neighbor's house or a light post. If the smoke alarms are sounding, everyone go to the meeting place to be accounted for.

The Third Step:

Make sure everyone knows how to call the emergency number 9-1-1. In case of a fire, don't waste precious minutes calling from inside the home. Get out and call the 9-1-1 from a cell phone or a neighbor's phone. And remember: NEVER re-enter a buring home for any reason.

The Fourth and Most Important Step:

PRACTICE your escape plan. Plans are no good if no one knows how to use them. Review the plan with everyone in the house and do practice exercises at least twice a year. Use this walk-through to check escape routes and to make sure all the exits are safe and practical. In a real fire, you must react quickly to get out of the house. Having a plan in place and understanding how to use it ensures that people get out of the burning home safely. Also make sure to review the plan with any guests who visit the house.

Every year, house fires kill families. Having a Fire Escape Plan in place can save lives at the time of an emergency.