Three Important Steps You Should Take Now to Protect Your Family and Your Home

1. Get Smart and get a Fire Action Plan that could save your life.

• Make your fire action plan to include everyone in your household, especially children and elderly or disabled people.
• Decide on the best escape route, and also a secondary route, if the main route is blocked.
• Tell everyone in your household where you keep the door and window keys.
• Decide on a suitable room to use if all escape routes are blocked.  It is helpful if this room has a phone, some towels or bedding to seal the door to prevent smoke and a window for fresh air and to help escape.

2. Get Equipped and invest in what is required for your family's safety.

Fire sprinklers are by far the most effective and efficient safety devices known to man, having a better than 99% success rate in service worldwide.  Fire sprinklers not only warn of fire, they also act immediately to extinguish the fire - even if no one is present.  Residential Fire sprinklers are not expensive, normally costing less than 1% of the cost of a new house.  This is similar to the cost of fitted carpets, but can save your life.

Wake Up - Get a Smoke Alarm.  These are by far the most common fire detection systems in the home.  See page 8 for help in choosing the correct smoke alarm for your needs.

The red fire extinguisher is so familiar in everyday life that we barely notice it.  These can be very helpful in key areas in the home.  The kitchen is the most common source of fires during daytime hours.  The living room is the most common source of fires during night time hours.  See page 4 for help in choosing the right fire extinguisher for your needs.

3. Get Out when a fire starts and know what to do in an emergency.

Raise the Alarm!  If your smoke alarm goes off while you're asleep, don't investigate to see if there is a fire.  There is no such thing as a safe fire.  Get everyone together and get out. Children and old people will be easily disorientated, so watch them carefully. Check doors with the back of your hand.  If they are warm do not open them - the fire is on the other side.  If there is a lot of smoke, crawl along the floor with your nose near the floor where the air will be cleaner. 

If you have to escape from a window, cover the jagged glass with towels or thick bedding.  Throw more bedding out of the window to break your fall.  Don't jump out of the window - lower yourself down to arm's length and drop to the ground.

If your escape route is blocked, get everyone into one room and close the door.  Smoke and fumes can kill people quickly, so put bedding or towels along the bottom of the door to seal the gap. Open the window and stay near it for fresh air, and to let the fire-fighters see you.