To ask for house fire advice for young children?

[Acunningruse]

The news this morning that 4 young children have died in a house fire is heartbreaking.

It has also made me aware that mine (age 2 and 6) would have absolutely no idea what to do in a fire, which is terrifying.

I have googled but a lot of advice seems to be from American sites or more towards preventing fires (which obviously is important!) than what to do in the event of a fire.

Does anyone know what is the best way to teach very young children what to do in the event of a fire? Preferably without scaring the bejesus out of them as the 6 year old suffers from anxiety.

Thanks

At a young age they are going to rely on you ingettin them out. Mine are 7 and 10 and they would still rely on me. But they do know that if I’m not coming (ie if I was unable to ) to close the doors of the room they are in, put a quilt by the bottom of the door and if smoke comes into the room they must lie down
And cover their mouths/ noses. The older one would have learnt this at school. Id also add if they can get them to put a light on as that could be a sign to the emergency services where they are.

Hi OP, contact your local Fire Station they are wonderful, and will come out and speak to you about Fire Safety, install smoke alarms etc. Also a good idea to look on their website for tips and start practicing what to do in case of a fire.

When mine were this age I casually asked them after reading topsy and Tim and the fire fighters.

What would they do? Could they find a way out if the stairs were blocked? ie our landing window leads onto a flat roof

We'd also had a chat about 999 for all reasons. Everything very matter of fact as they could get anxious too. They were fine, I'd recheck every now and then, in fact haven't done it for a while so might check again now my youngest is a bit older.

I'd read somewhere that a plan of escape is a good thing to have for anyone.

When I was 6 years old we had fire and earthquake drills at school (not UK). My parents also taught me what to do when bitten by a snake. So I think that you can teach the 6 yo something, just do it gently to not scare them.0

My two boys have the bedroom that has a window right above the flat roof bay window. We leave it unlocked, they know how to open it and we have gone through if they ever hear the smoke alarm in the night or smell smoke or see fire to climb out and go and knock on ndn for help, not to try to come and find us. Dd is too young yet and her bedroom isn't easy to escape. It's very difficult but so important isn't it, very scary!

To the other poster who mentioned nest, we have a nest outdoor camera, it's mostly fab but as it works via the Internet it has randomly gone down in the night which is worrying.

I haven't TTFT because I'm in the process of bedtime so unsure if this has been said already but just wanted to add something I had learnt recently.

If you have double glazing & there's a fire & you want to break the window hit it with something hard in the corner. Hitting the actual window will do nothing as it's designed for objects to 'bounce' off or away from the main pane of glass.

I have personal experience of this, we had a house fire a few months ago. Despite being very fire conscious and taking all safety precautions. I’m not going into detail on the public forum, but PM if you’d like any safety info.

Speak to your local fire station. In every property I've moved to I've had a free home safety check and they were fantastic with DD, she still remembers the fireman asking her if she knew what fire looked and smelled like (like bonfire night!) And then saying you don't want that in the house and he taught her about getting out safely and which route or how to be safe if she was trapped. The thing I remember is he told her if she was stuck to stand on the toy box Infront of her window and bang on it with a plastic toy while shouting as loud as she can "There's a fire in this house" because that and only that was what 'Blossom' the fire engine could hear and she'd arrive with firemen to save everyone. They did a trial run and the fireman in the truck outside must have been expecting it because he turned the lights on and jumped out saying 'Here are me and Blossom to save you!'
I was really impressed how they got the message through but didn't scare her. She's 16 now and still remembers 😊

My mum made our curtains in the bathroom removable with Velcro brought us a rope lader that would attest under the window and gave us a plan of the house incase we could get out of other doors she also mentioned wet towels under the bathroom door to stop smoke we also had fire extinguishers in most cuboards large old house so had to be careful

Prevention is best, always,

Get your gas appliances and boiler tested by a Corgi registered engineer annually.
Get him to safety test your sockets and light fittings and switches too.
Don't overload extension leads.

Get a smoke alarm for all bedrooms/hallways and kitchen. Test batteries quarterly.
Get a carbon monoxide alarm for the kitchen and any room with a gas fire/appliance in, this is so important as you don't smell the gas, so it is a silent killer.

If you lock any windows, keep a key taped to the frame to use in an emergency.
If upstairs get a fire ladder in each bedroom, practice how to use it.

They are a bit to young to have a drill without you so l would say, make sure your house/flat is as safe as possible, and that YOU have a plan if you are woken by your alarms.......

Don't hide, get down low under the smoke, cover your mouth and nose. Smoke inhalation is the biggest killer.

Oh, and when I replaced the windows, I went for ones that could be climbed out of or a child or animal chucked out of (we're one level but with all doors at opposite end of the building to the bedrooms. None of these small transom thingies.

We've got smoke alarms wired to the mains. They're too important to mess around with batteries for. And we've got a carbon monoxide detector.

We never leave any electrical appliances on..... especially the dishwasher or washing machine/drier. And I have a very strict rule about the kids not charging phones overnight.

One thing I always told my kids was not to hide, my dm had some friends whose kids died in a house fire. The kids were only young and hid in a wardrobe, presumably because they were terrified, by the time the firemen found them they had died

I've taught my kids (but realistically only my son will have the wherewithal to follow them) that if there's a fire on the stairs and there's no getting out, to shut the bedroom door, put a towel or clothes at the bottom of the door, open a window and stay low to the ground near the window until help arrives.

Ours is:-

1. smoke alarm wired to the mains and battery operated

2. the alarm goes off, dc (are teens now though) do not open their bedroom door, unless I say so. We keep the kitchen and living room doors shut to in the night so efffecrively we have zones.

3. I’ll test the door with the back of my hand. If it’s warm, shout to the boys to go through their bedroom window and I mine (we are ground level). If the door is cold, quickly touch the door handle with the back of my hand- ours our metal, so never grab one in case it’s hot.

4. i’ll go in the hallway, which if there is smoke it’s likely to be here. Boys to evacuate with me through the front door. It’s somds cruel but no stopping for our pet either (it’s not a cat or dog) But human lives come first.

In our old home, me and my partner could brake our window and get onto the roof below, them jump on to the grass which was easy.

The boys had a fire escape window, we purposely put a unit below, so they could open the window, which they were taught, and knew it was only in an emergency to be used, climb on to it, then get down, and knock on the neighbours door.

Local Fire Brigade will come and do home safety checks and talk through escape routes. They will also go into schools and nurseries to talk about fire (my DDs Nursery have just had the Fire Brigade in to talk to them and let them all sit in the fire engine of course).

My escape route is through DDs room as we live in a flat and her room goes out onto a porch thing. My main concern in a fire is my cat, I love that cat but she'd run from anyone and everyone.

Having just had a close encounter with the fire brigade (thankfully only limited damage), their advice for DD (6) was for us to expect to go to her. We have alarms, which they replaced with more modern ones, but they were happy they could hear them when they arrived.

Other advice was not to run the washing machine at night (or a tumble drier), as well as shutting downstairs doors (into the kitchen and living room) at night. But that's our responsibility, not DD's.

When I was young we lived somewhere that had fire alarms going off all the time but very rarely actual fires. What I remember is that even though my parents would wake us up and tell us to get out, chances are one of us children would try and go back to bed. We had regular fire drills and knew we had to use the stairs and not the lift, knew where to stand outside etc, but talking about it and practicing it in daytime was very, very different to it being the middle of the night and us being literally half asleep.
I think people underestimate how little you are able to see, the smoke can obscure everything. We always know exactly where our keys are and we try to keep floors clear at all times (friend of mine has things piled up on her stairs, bedroom floors, next to the front door etc) try blindfolding yourself to get an idea what it would be like.

Thanks to everyone who has posted, lots to think about. I'm going to sit down with a cuppa and read through the advice properly once DC asleep. Sounds like a visit from our fire service is the way to go though. Especially for their advice on an escape route, we don't have a flat roof or porch to drop onto and the DCs bedrooms are seperated from ours by the landing. Lots to think about.

to those with firsthand experience of fires in the home.

@bobstersmum That's a good point bobster, I'm not sure how the Nest cameras work as I don't have one but the Nest fire alarms are battery operated and although they connect to WiFi in order to send notifications to your phone, they operate totally as normal without WiFi e.g. alarm, lights and woman's voice, but obviously do not send the notifications to your phone

Forgot to mention the alarms also have a motion detector night light which is great for my mid-night toilet trips

We had the fire brigade visit us at home when we moved in. Our house would be difficult to get out from upstairs if we had a fire downstairs.

DD is 9yo and shares with our 3yo, she knows that if me or DH don't come to her, she's to put her duvet up underneath the door to stop any smoke getting in and to open the window. We have window keys on keyrings, hung on hooks at each window. The kids are at the front of the house so relatively easy to rescue. The windows in the bedrooms all open wide to let an adult though. The Fire Brigade said they'd be with us very quickly and most likely take us down the stairs and out the front door. Both children know not to hide but to wait by the open window.

Actually the Fire Brigade came out and climbed in a window when I locked myself out and the 3yo was alone in the house, so DS has seen the Fireman in the full outfit including helmet. But it would be quite scary seeing them in breathing gear, so a trip to the Fire Station to see them with their facemarks on would probably be helpful with little ones.

We shut both the kitchen and lounge doors at night and are saving up to put Nest smoke alarms in both rooms, so if there was smoke in there we would know straight away without waiting for it to reach the hallway alarm.

The Nest fire alarms can be battery or hard wired. They work standalone without wifi but if wifi is connected they can send a message to your phone and connect to smart lights in the house to light up. You can also control them via your phone for testing or silencing (e.g. burnt toast and you've dealt with it)

My BIL uses his Nest smoke alarm to notify him to pick up takeaway on the odd occasion his wife has set it off cooking dinner (colic-y baby causing distractions!!). He gets notifications on his phone when it's gone off and that his wife has silenced it

We want them hardwired after friends had a fire and they hadn't replaced the battery in their smoke alarm.

Holymerlot that's good to know! They sound fab!