How to Make an Effective Home Fire Escape Plan

If a fire starts in your home, it can spread rapidly, which is why the warning from your smoke alarm is critical to your survival. However, once a smoke alarm sounds, you may only have one or two minutes to get out safely, so an effective fire escape plan is also necessary.

Making a plan and ensuring your home is well prepared for a house fire doesn’t take much time or effort, and it can be the difference between life and death. To help you put your plan together, here are seven simple steps to creating an effective home fire escape plan to keep you and your family safe.

Install and Maintain Working Smoke Alarms

 

Australian laws require all homes to install smoke alarms. At a minimum, one must be fitted outside sleeping areas, with at least one on each floor of the property. For the best protection, they should also be installed inside all bedrooms and interconnected, especially if the door is kept closed during sleep.

Smoke alarms must be working to save lives, so be sure to test them every month. Replace regular batteries yearly; if your alarm is older than 10 years, replace it. Choose a photoelectric model with long-life lithium batteries or upgrade to hard-wired smoke alarms if possible.

Draw Up Your Fire Escape Plan

Get everyone together and draw up a plan of your house, including all the exits and smoke alarms. Putting it on paper is essential if you have children, so they can easily refer back to it and be confident they’ll know what to do. Locate two ways out of every room using windows or doors, mark it on the plan, and go into each room to visualise it so everyone is clear.

You should also take the opportunity to discuss some general fire safety tips that can help during an escape. These include closing doors behind you to slow the spread of the fire and getting down low to crawl under smoke.

Check and Clear Escape Routes

It’s essential to physically walk through your home and check that all exits are clear and that windows and doors can be opened easily. If security bars are fitted to windows, ensure emergency release devices are inside. Emergency escape ladders can enable a safe escape if your home is multi-storey. Keep ladders stored within easy access to the window and ensure everyone in the house knows how to use them.

Choose a Safe Meeting Place

Having a designated meeting place once you’ve escaped is essential. Pick somewhere safe from your home, easy to remember, and that can be located without too much trouble in the dark. This could be the mailbox, neighbour’s house, streetlight, or road sign outside your property. Mark it on your fire escape plan and ensure everyone knows exactly where it is, so there is no confusion.

Contacting Emergency Services

Help all family members memorise 000 so everyone can confidently phone emergency services if required. If you have young children, displaying the number on the fridge or notice board where they can see it can really help. Also, make sure everyone knows the house address and that your street number is clearly identifiable from the road, either displayed on the mailbox or painted on the gutter.

Help Everyone Get Out Safe

If members of your household are young, elderly or have limited mobility, be sure to include specific steps in your plan to help them escape in an emergency. It’s a good idea to assign someone to assist them, plus a backup in case the designated person is not home when the fire starts.

Practise and Keep it Fresh in Mind.

Once you’ve put your plan together, don’t file it away and forget about it. Keep it somewhere accessible, or even better, in view on a memo board or the inside of the pantry door. Then, practise your escape plan and discuss it with everyone who lives in the house at least twice a year.

It’s also helpful to hold a drill at night, and to use the opportunity to find out who wakes up to the smoke alarm and who doesn’t. You can assign someone to wake up anyone who sleeps through the alarm to be sure everyone gets the warning they need to get out safely.

Bottom Line on Making an Effective Fire Escape Plan

Smoke alarms are an essential first step in fire safety, but when you back them up with a clear and well-rehearsed fire escape plan, you give your family the best chance of escape.

Keeping your plan fresh in the minds of everyone in the house, especially children, can be the difference between panic and chaos and calm and confident if an emergency does happen.

Download or Fire Escape Plan Checklist

Download or Fire Escape Plan Checklist here

Key Products

• Emergency Smoke Masks
• Emergency Ladders & Glass Breakers
• Fire Resistant Bags