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Home Escape Planning Home Escape Planning Pull together everyone in your household and make a plan. Walk through your home and inspect all possible exits and escape routes. Households with children should consider drawing a floor plan of your home, marking two ways out of each room, including windows and doors. Also, mark the location of each smoke alarm. Install smoke alarms in every sleeping room, outside each sleeping area and on every level of the home. Everyone in the household must understand the escape plan. When you walk through your plan, check to make sure the escape routes are clear and doors and windows can be opened easily. Choose an outside meeting place (i.e. neighbor's 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 street number is clearly visible from the road. If not, make sure to install house numbers to ensure that responding emergency personnel can find your home. If there are infants 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. Assign a backup person too, in case the designee is not home during the emergency. Tell guests or visitors to your home about your family's fire escape plan. When staying overnight at other people's homes, ask about their escape plan. If they don't have a plan in place, offer to help them make one. This is especially important when children are permitted to attend "sleepovers" at friends' homes. Be fully prepared for a real fire: when a smoke alarm sounds, get out immediately. Once you're out, stay out! Under no circumstances should you ever go back into a burning building. If someone is missing, inform the fire department dispatcher when you call. Firefighters have the skills and equipment to perform rescues. Putting Your Plan to the Test… Practice your home fire escape plan twice a year, making the drill as realistic as possible. Allow children to master fire escape planning and practice before holding a fire drill at night when they are sleeping. The objective is to practice, not to frighten, so telling children there will be a drill before they go to bed can be as effective as a surprise drill. It's important to determine during the drill whether children and others can readily waken to the sound of the smoke alarm. If they fail to awaken, make sure that someone is assigned to wake them up as part of the drill and in a real emergency situation. If your home has two floors, every family member (including children) must be able to escape from the second floor rooms. Always choose the escape route that is safest – the one with the least amount of smoke and heat – but be prepared to escape under toxic smoke if necessary. When you do your fire drill, everyone in the family should practice getting low and going under the smoke to your exit. Closing doors on your way out slows the spread of fire, giving you more time to safely escape. When your smoke detector sounds you may only have a minute or two to escape. Department of Fire & Emergency Services 26 Broad Street • Albany, NY 12202 • (518) 447-7879 www.facebook.com/FDAlbanyny www.twitter.com/FD_AlbanyNY