House Fires: How To Get Out Alive

In 2012 NSW suffered more than 4219 house fires that were responsible for 21 preventable fire deaths and 649 fire injuries.

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There is a house fire in Queensland every 4 to 5 hours. In many cases the death due to housefires could have been avoided with proper planning. Do you and your family have an emergency exit strategy in place in case of fire breaks out in your home?

How to get out of a house fire ALIVE!

House fires can happen at lightning speeds. It usually only takes about 30 seconds for a small flying to turn into an uncontrollable blaze. The elderly as well as young children are particularly vulnerable in housefires. This is because they lack the strength required to smash windows and doors and they are move slower. They can get scared easily and confused.
Some people become trapped in homes by using security windows and doors that they can’t open in an emergency.

  1. You must have an evacuation plan: you must identify at least two ways to exit every room in an emergency. This can be by either a door or a window. You should plan your emergency escapes and practice them with your entire family. It is very important to practice these drills with young children. You should also practice in the dark so that every member of your family can learn how to feel their way out of the house when I can’t see. You should allocate the meeting spot outside of your home where all of your family members are to me as soon as they exit the house.
  2. Home Fire Safety - Get out aliveYour personal safety is key: you must plan the role of each parent or adult carefully. Your plan must include who will be responsible for fetching any babies and young children, any elderly, disabled people as well as any family pets. Everyone in your household should be educated on the standard fire safety rules. You should also practice carrying out these rules for example practice crawling low as if under smoke during a house fire toward your emergency exit. You can even practice while covering your face with a wet shirt or cloth which will help to minimise smoke in relation. You should emphasise that once everyone has successfully escaped from the house they should never go back inside for any reason at all. You must wait outside for the fire brigade to arrive.
  3. House fire safety equipment: make sure that your home has the appropriate number of working smoke alarms that all have batteries that are regularly changed. You should also have fire extinguishers, five blankets and torches that are easily accessible and in stored in a location that every family member knows about. You should also make sure that everyone in your family observes cooking, candle use and smoking safety at all times. You should have an electrician regularly check your electrical systems to make sure that they all safe. While having a planned emergency exit strategy is vital it is always best if you never have to use it.
  4. Security screens fire safety: if you have security windows and doors on your home you must make sure that you still have emergency exits that can be easily opened from the inside. You can also purchase fire doors and fire hydrants at an optimal price.

We can install, test, inspect and maintain all of your fire equipment and provide fire safety certificates and annual fire safety statements.  Protect your business or property today with our fire extinguisher service.

Video text:

The life of a deadly fire has begun. This scenario occurs in millions of homes every year around the world. “So here we have flames just beginning to come up the back of the sofa . It might be from a cigarette that was left there for a little while or a little kid playing with the lighter that has given it a little ignition.

At this stage the small flame is relatively harmless. The main source of fuel is the sofa. As it burns the heat that it produces decomposes chemicals in it would and synthetic material. Rising as a complex concoction of flammable gases they combine with oxygen in the room to produce a dazzling chemical reaction: flames. As the flames radiate he downward onto the sofa more and more fuel is consumed. As this deadly cycle repeats itself the fire grows with frightening speed. “Here we have two smoke detectors in the hallway that we are getting activated. The fire is beginning to spread up the wall. You can start seeing heavier smoke building up against the ceiling . That’s hot gas that is trapped there by the ceiling. Experiments like this have led scientists to a simple yet alarming discovery. Buyers are changing at 107 seconds into the burn this fire is much hotter than it would’ve been 20 years ago. The reason, modern furnishings ignite more easily and burn faster than traditional products like wall and timber. “We can see the radiation from the firejust on the sofa starting to affect other objects in the room. They are smoking, they are pyrolysing, they are giving off additional fuel. That’s additional fuel that is going up into the hot layer that’s going to burn”
In the 1950s the average apartment fire took more than 15 minutes at around 1400°F. Today they can hit a staggering 2000°F. In a little over 150 seconds this test fire grew from a harmless flame to our raging inferno. The heat and energy that it released destroyed the apartment in less than three minutes.

House Fire Safety

2012 showed a small increase in the number of house fires and fire related deaths compared to 2011. The biggest increases were in the number of fire injuries which are up 33% compared to 2011. Nearly 75% of the fire victims were male and nearly 30% of those were more than 65 years old.

Almost every day fire fighters attend house fires that could have been prevented by following few simple steps and precautions. Sadly, some of these fires have seriously injured people and taken the lives of others.

It can take as little as 3 minutes for a fire to take hold that could have been prevented in only a few seconds. These preventable measeure can be simply turning off electrical appliances before you go to bed, keeping a close eye on you’re cooking and cleaning the lint filter on your clothes dryer.

People often think that a house fire will never happen to them and this leads to complacency.  The massive number of house fires speak for themselves.  This is a very real threat to everyone.

The most important things you can do to protect your family is to have a smoke alarm that works and a home escape plan that everyone knows and has practiced.

How to Survive a House Fire

The heat from a house fire alone can kill you. The smoke produced in a house fire is deadly and the flames move so fast.

If the smoke alarm work you up in the middle of the night would you know what to do?

CBS News has the fire department like a house fire in order to show viewers just how fast the flames can spread.

There are some simple safety precautions that if followed could save your life if you ever involved in a house fire.

You should have working smoke alarms and the plan of escape. Having this could mean the difference between life for death. If I housefire occurs you will have just minutes to get out alive.

In a house fire is a race against time. Time is your space enemy as you may only have a few minutes in which to wake up and realise what’s happening wake everyone else up that in your house and get them all outside to safety. That is a very short amount of time.

The fire in there particularly for example was started by using a lighter on some newspapers that were in a trash can in the living room of the house. The living room is right next to the master bedroom.

Many fatal fires occur while you’re asleep. In this fire it shows that in less than 30 seconds after the fire is lit that the newspapers begin to burn and the smoke alarms go off. Add one minute into the fire the curtains catch a light and everyone flees the house. Within two minutes of the beginning of the fire the couch is inflames. The fire is moving along the ceiling and black smoke is filling up the room.

The door to the master bedroom is closed and hardly any smoke is visible even with the raging fire in the next room.

Smoke starts to trickle into the bedroom that has the door open. It begin it consumes the room and all that can be seen as the reflection of the camera in the window.

The living room now he’s almost pitch black. The fire is so hot that it is cracked the window in front of the camera. The firefighters now come through the front door and put out the fire.

The fire chief in charge says that it was me 1000°F in order to be other to break the glass. The smoke alarm has been melted by the fire. There was a point in this Fire weather conditions made it impossible to escape. The fire chief explains that if it is this kind of situation and you should not try to escape. You should try and go back into your room and weight as we teach you or your going to die.

The bedroom that had the door shut had no signs of fire. This shows that anyone who had stayed in there would have survive without much discomfort and for a fairly long time until firefighters arrived. The room that was down the hall further showed signs of smoke damage and anyone that had been in that room would probably have died. The fire cheese then says that as you can see if you sleep with your bedroom door closed it will keep the deadly smoke out. All experts agree that because fires happen so quickly everyone in the household needs needs to know escape plan.
As soon as you hear the smoke alarm you should roll out of bed and way on the floor. The next thing you should do is crawl to the door and use the back of your hand to feel if the door frame and door knob are hot.
If these items both feel cool to touch open the door and take a look out of the room. If it all looks clear you should grab your phone and grab your kids and crouch or crawl to your nearest exit. As soon as you’re outside call 000.
You should have a meeting place arranged for outside your home so that you avoid making the tragic mistake of going back inside the house to save someone who may have already escaped.

If you crawl to the door of your room and feel that the door frame or doorknob is warm don’t open it. Place clothes or blankets around the door to stop smoke from getting in the room. The next thing you should do is go to your window. If you’re trapped on the second story and escape later can help you. You should always teach your family at least two ways to escape from every room.

Most fatal fires occur in homes that don’t have any working smoke alarms. You should have a smoke alarm works on every floor of your house and outside every bedroom. If he has children you should test your smoke alarms at night to see if it wakes them up.  Fire protection plan should always be a priority to prevent any mishaps from happening.  Make sure you have fully tested fire equipment all the time.

Each fire technician takes pride in their work, ensuring minimum disruption to your operations while making sure that all fire extinguisers are installed and tested according to fire extinguisher testing specifications. It will be cost-effective as we are providing affordable fire extinguisher testing cost.

Regardless of whether your project is large or small, simple or complex, our fire extinguisher service division has the expertise you need to install, repair, service and maintain your fire alarm and evacuation system.

Other resources:

  1. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/firesafety.html
  2. http://www.apsf.org/resources_video.php
  3. http://www.sparklesthefiresafetydog.com/fire_safety_videos.html
  4. http://www.usfa.fema.gov/citizens/home_fire_prev/
  5. https://www.gov.uk/workplace-fire-safety-your-responsibilities/who-is-responsible
  6. http://www.scholastic.com/firesafety/
  7. http://www.fiprecan.ca/
  8. http://www.firesafetyforkids.org/
  9. http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/FireSafety/
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