Protect your family from home fires

Protect your family from home fires

Test smoke alarms, make escape plan and close bedroom doors

By Sean Sims

Fire is fast! Thick, black smoke can fill your home quickly, giving you as little as two minutes to escape.

Fires burn faster and hotter in today's homes due to the high amount of plastic used in nearly everything from electronics to furniture to carpeting. These plastics produce deadly smoke and toxic gases, which kill more people than flames do.

You can take three simple steps to protect yourself in the event of a home fire:

Place smoke alarms outside every bedroom.

Image courtesy of U.S. Fire Administration

1. Smoke Alarms:

Make sure you have working, interconnected smoke alarms inside and outside each sleeping area. Test your alarms monthly by pressing the test button. Replace batteries twice a year, and replace alarms completely every 10 years—or sooner for carbon monoxide (CO) or combination smoke/CO alarms.

2. Home Escape Plan:

Leave everything behind, get low and go! Develop and practice a home escape plan. Know two ways out of every room in your home. Choose an outside meeting place where your family will gather. Once you are out, stay out even if a family member or pet is trapped.

Close bedroom doors each night for a safety barrier.

Image courtesy of Fire Safety Research Institute

3. Close Before You Doze:

To give yourself the most time possible to escape, fully close your bedroom door every time you sleep. Closing the door separates you from potentially deadly smoke. Closing children's doors at bedtime puts a safety barrier in place that gives them more time to escape, especially if adults cannot reach them quickly.

Sean Sims is a captain with the Oak Ridge Volunteer Fire Department.