How do people not get out when there is a fire?

[rickman]

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A LARGE percentage of homes don't have working smoke alarms. If it were up to DH we wouldn't. I only found out accidentally 3 weeks ago that our preschool smoke alarm wasn't working.... quite probably all of last half-term

Or people are too pissed to realise what that noise is.

We keep a hammer in the drawer next the bedroom window in case we have to smash the window to get out. We have the keys in the drawer too but I thought in a smoke filled room a hammer is easier to find! I saw an episode of London's Burning once and it haunted me, someone trying to break a double-glazed window with a chair.

Cam, I was at a fire brigade demo this summer where they said that sound usually starts at 2am and you crawl out of bed, pull out the battery and crawl back into your pit. By morning you may well have forgotten about it and sadly people do forget to put a new battery in.

I once slept through a fire practice at boarding school (wans't the only one there were 3 of us).

And believe you me those alarms were loud - I still to this day don't know how I managed it (no I wasn't drunk LOL) but it's scary to think if I could sleep through that, my smoke alarm is noisy - but not as noisy as those fire alarms were.......

My class had fire officer in for fire safety talk once. Frightened the life out of me.

Most people are killed by the smoke. He said that every household should have a get out of the house plan and practice it regularly.

I now always check the hall is free of debris before I go to bed. In the film the child died coz it tripped over stuff left in the hall. Couldn't see because of the smoke.

I am really glad we live in a one story house ... we could all get out of the windows with no worries of breaking bones ...
Definitely a plus side of living in NZ where all the houses are made of wood.

I once heard that what you do with tinies is to wrap them in a duvet and throw them out of the window.

This seemed sensible until I typed it.

Peters old house was petrol bombed. the smoke alarms didnt go off as the heat was so intense they melted before they had a chance. What woke his mum up was the fire extinguser exploding!!!

they go out by climbing onto a sheltered part near their garage, tho peter went straight through it onto the concrete below.

why did i read this at this time of night...gona have nightmares now awful thing, everybody should make sure they gat smoke alarms and check them regularly

oh my god misdee!

bloody hell

basiaclly their front door lead onto the stairs, so the fire was also below his apents room. his elder brother got ut over the conservatory, they also had a japanese student with them who was hysterical, so peters dad just lobbed her out the window.

People do do strange things in a panic, it does help to have a plan. I have discused with DH and children what we would do, like DH gets DS because he is heavier and in a bunk bed I will get DD and we all go into DD room because it has ledge under the window. Think things through, like locked windows.

I remember in a training session we discussed the big fire that happened in a store (Woolworths i think) most people made there way out safely but a number of people were found in the cafe area. Why? Because they stayed and queued up to pay for their food and the smoke and fumes from the cfe furniture killed them. Also in the Bradford fire many people automatically tried to get out the way they came in.

As Skribble says, lots of the people who die in fires in public places seem to be on autopilot - they're not dying because they're panicking, they're dying because they're not panicking.

Fires at home, yeah, it's lack of smoke alarms, smoke inhalation, only a single exit, problems getting out. Also, a two-year-old (if not in a cot) will go hide, if there's a fire, in the bottom of a closet. Or somewhere weirder. It's hard to get your kids out if you can't find them.

Gah, now I'm thinking we have to start rethinking our fire plan a) as the kids get bigger, b) as we knock through. Currently I'm responsible for DS2 and DH is responsible for DS1.

I've seen CTV footage of people in the King's Cross fire, just ignoring the tube staff telling them not to go on the escalator, to get back on the tube. People are in robot mode: they're going home by their usual route and nothing is going to stop them. It was freaky.

This is a very serious subject but LOL at Peter's dad lobbing the Japanese student out the window Misdee! It's the way you tell em!!

crikey misdee !

omg misdee!

This thread has really got me thinking. I've just gone upstairs now and put a hammer under the bed! And on my way to pick up ds I'm going to drop the window key off to get a spare cut(there's only one for the whole house so usually sits downstairs).

Also, now ds is 5 I think we should redo our plan. It had never occured to me before but yes, I can see him hiding under his bed and us not being able to drag him out.

Do you think 5 is too young for a talk about fire? (I don't want to scare him and would he really remember anything useful in a real fire?)

cupcakes, I presume your DS is starting yr1 (same as my DS2!) they've probably already talked about fires in school, and done a couple of evacuations. Maybe you can ask him about what they do in school, and extend it to what you would do at home if your fire alarm goes off. Set it off so he knows what it sounds like and do a mini evacuation of your own.

I helped at a fire once (neighbours house) where most of the downstairs was on fire, they lowered the kids down inside the duvet cover and the parents jumped out when the kids were safe. The dog that woke them up howling jumped through a window downstairs and was so badly injured but survived. Without him the whole family would probably have been killed.This was in teh days before smoke alarms and in NZ where houses are often timber and burn very quickly.

thanks serenity - I had totally forgotton but yes, he did have a fire drill in reception. That's a good idea and I'll definitely do it!

There seems to be some disparity in this thread over whether timber houses in NZ are good or bad (so I would have thought) in a fire!