Fire Safety: To tell parents of small children to keep a duvet cover in the bedroom

[WorldLeaderPretend]

When my kids were small, I kept a spare duvet cover under the bed in each bedroom. Before I had children, a house 3 doors down lost 2 of their 3 children in a house fire. Parent got into the room but couldn't get the kids out. This haunted me and I decided I could lower a baby or toddler out of a first floor window inside an empty duvet cover. Even if it didn't go right to the ground, it would hugely reduce the distance they would be falling from. I kept one in every child's room until the youngest was 5 or so. Even today we have an agreed escape plan for a fire (and ladders stored on the side of the house for easy access).

Other top tips include using a towel on the pillow for a vomiting child - you just change the towel rather than having to keep changing sheets and pillowcases.

Oh and after a bad dream, you shake the nasty dream off the pillow onto the floor and turn it over to the nice dream on the other side of the pillow. I still do this now I am in my 50s!

For safety or ease, what do you do? Any brilliant ideas?

I also have a our address, postcode and emergency contact numbers on a card stuck to the back of the front door so the DC can call and relay the correct location information for emergency services.
I worked away alot and this was in case something happened to DP. At the we lived rurally so it was a walk to neighbours.

@rosewater20 you probably have a heat alarm in the kitchen instead of a smoke alarm. I think it’s to do with people switching smoke alarms in kitchens off if the alarm is too sensitive to normal cooking!

We have doors and windows that you can jump out of. Plenty of smoke alarms and we keep our keys in the lock of the front door.
It’s difficult to have an exact escape plan without knowing which bit of the house will be alight TBF.

Smoke alarms which tall rather than a just alarm are better. They are more expensive but as pp said it has been shown that children don’t always wake to the alarm. Our talking ones tell you were the fire is, she says ‘warning there is smoke in the kitchen the alarm will sound’ and she repeats herself.

that and windows which are not locked with keys (and are big enough to get out of) and an escape plan that the children know about are your best bets OP

We put all this in place after the 6 year died in a house fire started (it was in the national news, their a father started the fire)

@Wallywobbles Electric Shutters- I'd imagine you could disengage the drive motor with a lever to activate them manually in case of a power outage. Definitely worth seeing if you can Google some manufacturers instructions. I doubt they would pass Regulations if this were not the case.

This thread is making me wish we didn’t have decking under our bedroom window. Bloody hate it anyway (previous owners put it in). But it’s also hard to land on and will presumably catch fire and create a big firey pit under the bedroom window.

You really need lots of smoke alarms. Every bedroom and every floor. I live in a small 3 bed and have 7 alarms, that are tested.
IIRC unless someone pours something flammable in your letter box then the smoke alarms will wake the adults and you'll all be out quickly before it takes hold.

Don’t forget your carbon monoxide detectors too!

Having, and regularly checking, properly placed smoke alarms are by far the biggest thing in a house fire. They may not wake small children / babies, but they need adults to get them out of the house anyway.

After that, the other considerations are tiny in increasing your chances of survival. My biggest tip is to shut your downstairs doors - particularly those which are along your means of escape. Even non-fire doors will act as a barrier to increase your escape time (up to 20 mins ish). As an adult, you should also check you can (literally) get out with your eyes shut - smoke in your exit route means it can be very difficult to see.

I do not agree with fire extinguishers to help you get out though. If a fire is big enough to block your exit, it is far too big to tackle with a fire extinguisher (except in films). They are great for reducing property damage if you spot a very small fire early, but should never be used on medium or large fires.

I no the fire services have already come forward and said how much more worried they are right now and going forward. The up sale in the buying of candles and camping stoves and different ways of heating and cooking because of the cost of living crisis.

But it’s also hard to land on and will presumably catch fire and create a big firey pit under the bedroom window.

Hard to land on, but nowhere near has hard as patio. And it’s surprisingly hard to burn wood when it is laid flat. (I’m not a pyromaniac - I’ve tried it as an actual experiment in a lab.)

I apologize if I badly worded the title. And maybe my idea is crappy. I never intended it to be the sole piece of fire planning. It was intended as an add on to the smoke alarms, escape windows, plan, duvet blocking smoke under the door plan. For that potential moment when we were blocked in a child's room with only the window to escape through. It helped me sleep better, though I was lucky enough to never use it.

We had the fire brigade round fitting smoke alarms when the kids were little and they were very clear about having a plan (and good quality smoke alarms). Back in the day (mid 90s) when I was a teacher we used to take our upper primary kids on a safety day and that included a simulation of a house fire. The kids had to crawl on the floor to find the door in the "smoke". I guess the idea was that whilst it might feel scary it was worth it for the fact that those kids would go home and discuss fire escape planning.

Does anyone have the dedicated fire escape ladders that you release with a pin? Considering these, but can't find a supply-and-fit company.

Remember when I was little I’d sneak down and open the kitchen door.I needed to no my puppy could get up and out!

I also thought of Grenfell tower and how duvets wouldn’t have helped them much so I would say it’s more about having a plan - but even then the fire brigade plan was wrong.

We keep the extra bedding in a cupboard in the kids room anyway but it would only serve to block the smoke coming in the door way.

We live in a tower block and under normal circumstances if there were a fire in the stairway we would be trapped. Right now we have scaffolding up against the building so there’s a way out.

Rule number one is smoke alarms in every room. They buy you the extra time so you hopefully don’t have to jump out of a window or hide in a room insulating it from smoke.

But in my case, without the scaffolding, I don’t know what I would do if there’s a fire on the ground floor and they’re not home to hear the smoke alarms.

Well ive just ordered a fire escape ladder ive been meaning to buy for two years for myself and my daughter so thank you for the reminder

The fire brigade will come round and give you a free safety check. They replaced our smoke alarms for free and gave us an emergency plan. Our bedrooms are on the second floor but my children have fire doors which would take hours to burn through. It is important to have a plan in case of panic.

I think this thread is really useful actually. Some sensible advice here.

Interlinked alarms make a huge difference. It's now a legal requirement in Scotland but should be everywhere. We have heat, carbon monoxide and multiple smoke alarms all interlinked and we test weekly. The volume is so, so much greater than from a single alarm, however close you are to it. It also fills the whole house with noise immediately regardless of which unit triggered.

We also have emergency ladders on the first floor but since changing the crappy single alarms to the full system it feels much less likely we'd ever need to use them.

Planning is never a bad thing to do imo.

I put a big keyring with door and window keys in my daughters bedside drawer, we had a 3 storey house. She could get herself and siblings out then. I work in health and safety though so it's important to me

It's sensible for you and your family to know what to do though. Moat important is that children know not to panic and hide. My kids had good fire safety talks at primary, they initiated discussion on what to do. I still remember the throw your bedding out the window and then lower yourself out ( never jump!)from when I was at primary school.

I commented last night about how the thread title made me think this was going to be a cute thread to open. I'm not against fire safety but when I read this last night it really sparked my anxiety and it took a while for me to settle down to sleep.

Please OP; ask MN to add 'fire safety' or something into your title?

It's not that I do t want to read the content but I'm autistic and obsessive and I would choose not to read such a thing late at night if I could.

I know you didn't intend any harm but i think it would make a difference to people if you did have something added.

Also thank you. I bought 2 smoke alarms to replace broken bedroom ones a few weeks back and will be ensuring to fit them later as for some reason they are still in the box.

Adding my support to this.

YABU to "tell" people what to do

We did this. The crew came in a massive fire engine one evening and let the DC sit in it! They were brilliant.

They went through everything with us - smoke alarms, windows, doors, door locks & keys, escape plans …

I must get a new fire blanket.

In the event of it though I often think how I would act even with a plan.if someone I loved was in trouble. Or if the whole get yourself out mantra wouod be there.I’d always always need to go and check everyone’s out.