More specifically, could you get everyone out of the house, blindfolded, in under a minute?

[Nimbostratus100]

Following on from the emergency thread... (yes I have let the police in without the washing up being done in the past - no - no one cared...)

If your house was filled with smoke, and you couldn't see or breathe in - could you get out?

This mostly means, can you put your hand on the door or window key right now, with your eyes closed, and does everyone know where to meet up?

( lives have been lost when everyone is safely out, but someone is missing and a relative returns to a burning building to look for them, not knowing they were already safe)

I think this is important - if you have to get out of the house blind, before you next breathe in - do you have an emergency key in a fixed place you can put your hand straight on now without thinking?

That makes you more vulnerable to a break in thought.

I struggle with that. The things that make fire escape easier, make a burglary more likely.

The front door only has a latch so I wouldn’t need a key, other doors have keys in the locks. I’d struggle tbh because I have a 1 and 3 year old. I’ve often thought about how we’d escape.

For those saying leaving a key makes burglary easier, my DP is a joiner and can remove your entire lock/handle in under a minute, so keys aren't necessary needed to get in your house.
Also, this is a good idea for those with pets.

Yes because, correctly, the door to my flat has a deadbolt lock that is opened by a thumb turn on the inside.

if you have any arrangement that needs you to find a key or use two hands to open and get out, you’re at massive risk in a fire.

sort your locks out! It could save you and your family’s lives.

That makes you more vulnerable to a break in thought.
@Tableandhairs why? Either they'd have to smash the wall through to get the keys or break the door down. Either way they wouldn't then need the keys!

Have any of you that leave keys in the door thought about how anyone who needed to get in in an emergency might get on?

Yeah well your opinion matters not a fuck to me

I’d definitely be able to move around the house blindfolded (DP would struggle though, I think) and we have multiple ways out on the ground floor with keys that are easily accessible but upstairs we only have one window that we could easily get out of onto a flat roof and then we’d be stuck or have to risk breaking bones when jumping off.

Reading this thread, I’m going to add the key to the livingroom patio doors to our outside keysafe so we could open that once we were outside for the cats to get out if we needed to.

We’re unlikely to get a fire engine up the lane to our house quickly which is a worry but we do have fire extinguishers and blankets if it were something small and could be contained.

Our escape would be out the ensuite window and onto the porch roof. Although after reading this thread I might get some torches for by the bed.

Check your smoke alarm and see a regular calendar reminder.

I'm not sure about blindfold, but we have a front door that opens from the inside without a key, and a back door that has a key in it. All bedrooms and the landing have a window you can get out of if necessary, and our bedroom and the landing window both open onto a small flat roof so you could drop down to ground level without injury. We have smoke alarms which DH sets off with vaping so we know they work.

I have a fire blanket in the kitchen - have never used it though I have managed to set a tea towel and kitchen roll on fire on the gas hob.

The scariest thing was I had an old charger once that got hot when plugged in one evening - I noticed before I got into bed, thank goodness.

We have a landing window that opens onto the flat roof garage, so yes, pretty sure I could get out provided the landing was not actually on fire. Otherwise stuffed as the bedroom windows don't open wide. We have two smoke alarms though so I'd wake up quickly

No one has key to my house anyway.

In an emergency, the door would have to be caved in or the lock broken.

Have any of you that leave keys in the door thought about how anyone who needed to get in in an emergency might get on?

Through the front door- standard Yale.

Are there any good teaching tools/ videos for young children to teach them about fire safety?

I don't think we'd risk going downstairs to the front door if it was a big fire. We have a big enough window that opens above the flat porch roof, and could get down that way. That window has the key in it but is generally unlocked anyway.

yes - dog lead right next to the door, keys on a shelf by the door, back door key in the lock, window key to DS's window on a shelf near the window.

Dog sleeps in with me, and DS's room has a stairgate so he wouldn't be able to wander off and need to be looked for. I have to go past DS's room to get out, so grab dog, stop off at DS's room to get him, and straight downstairs and out the door. Or all out through DS's bedroom window - duvets and pillows out first to make a landing pad, drop dog onto them so I can concentrate on getting DS out. Hang DS by his arms reaching down as far as I can, so that he only has a few feet to drop, then hang from the window frame myself and drop, never jump as you can break your ankles.

Back garden is enclosed but v easy to hop over to next door.

Thanks so much for posting this. I’ll look into this.

Everyone with a key to my house would be inside anyway. If there was an emergency, the emergency services would be dealing with it, and would no doubt burst the door open.

I could but would hopefully be able to run up to the loft floor where the dds sleep and get them up, then swing by for ds on the way back down. All depends on where the fire was though as to how it would all work.
the girls could get out of their windows and get down to the kitchen (extension) roof, ds could go from his window. None of the keys are in the window locks, we’ve just never used them and took them all out. Our front door doesn’t need a key to unlock but the back and side do, those keys are left in their locks.
I’d hope to have time to pick up the tortoise but at the end of the day it would be sad to lose him but far far worse to lose any of my children so they’d be my priority.

Our front and back door doesn't need a key on the inside to lock or unlock, so we are good.

We didn't want to leave our keys in the door - DH watched a programme on burglaries which showed just how easy it is for someone to fish your keys out of your letterbox when they're in the lock.

This is one of our doors - it works so well. Always know where your keys are, safer from burglars plus they're up high so out of the way if you have young dc.

We bought a pack of about 20 of these stick on things for less than a tenner, they're handy in loads of places!

Thanks for making my point much more forcefully than I did with a first hand experience (glad you got out ok!)

In no circumstances should you need to find, put in, or turn a key to get out in the event of fire. As @TheClitterati so graphically explains, you have no idea how hard that will be in a fire.

I’ll say again, sort your door hardware out! It needn’t be difficult or expensive or compromise your door security. But it could save your life.

it’s not as simple as just being not able to see in the dark. Smoke can affect all your senses / reactions. It needs to be as simple as possible (preferably one handed) exit without fumbling for keys

I don’t know if they still do, but the fire service used to come out and check how fire safe your house was. They checked alarms are sufficient and helped you make an emergency plan.

We have a rock solid plan - depending on where fire is, we either use the door (key in) or we could also climb out windows. Dd knows how to do this - the windows push right out.

One of us would leave via our bedroom window, the other would go into kids room, grab them, and leave via their bedroom window.

Dog can get out herself too as she demonstrates on nice sunny days when she joins us in the garden after previously being indoors 😂

We are all on one floor and it is agreed that we would meet beside the car (which is close enough to see but far enough to not be swallowed up by a house fire)

I had the lock on the front door changed after we moved in so you just use the handle to get out from inside (but is locked from the outside) for this exact reason. I can't be faffing with keys. None of our big windows are locked. The kids bedrooms all, fortunately, go out onto the ground floor roof extension so we have talked through that exit route with them several times. With this in place I feel we've done as much as we can.