About two Americans are injured from a fire every hour. Yet less than 40% of households have prepared themselves for a household fire. Gather up your family and show them these simple ways to prepare.

Draw a Map of your Home

• Mark every window, door, and smoke detector location. Try to find and draw at least two ways out of every room, especially bedrooms.

Prepare for a Fire

• Decide on a safe place away from the home to meet.
• Ask your parents to purchase an escape ladder for the windows above the first floor.
• Make sure younger siblings know your address and what calling 9-1-1 means.
• Test your smoke alarms. It’s best to have at least one on every floor.
  • Experts recommend to own both ionization AND photoelectric alarms.
  • Replace those batteries at least once a year!

Teach Everyone What to Do

Show your family these moves.

• Roll out of bed when you hear the smoke alarm.
• Crawl to the door and feel if it’s warm.
• If the door is cool, open the door to look for smoke. If there’s no smoke, exit that way and close the door behind you.
• If the door is warm or smoke appears, use another exit. 
• Smoke rises, so everyone should crawl and stay low to the floor.
• Once you get outside, go to your meeting place.
• Assign certain adults to alert younger siblings that may need assistance in an emergency.

Run your Drill

• Push the button on the fire alarm.
• Grab your cellular or cordless phone.
• Everyone should follow the steps you outlined.
• Run through the steps as if the door feels cool.
• Once outside, no one should go back indoors.
• Pretend to call the fire department.
• Run the drill again, this time pretending the door feels hot. Have everyone pretend as if they would use the other exit.

Talk about the Drill

• Congratulate everyone on a successful drill, and tell them you’ll be practicing the drill at least two times a year!
• For more information and advice on fire and household safety, click here [2].

Check out our Disaster Preparedness [3] section for more tips and stats. GO [3]