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Plan and Practice Your Home Fire Escape Plan
Safe Kids Worldwide and the United States Fire Administration are teaming up to ask every family to create a home fire escape plan and to practice it with the entire family. We are working to raise awareness on fire safety all month long.
- Every day at least one child dies in a home fire. In that same day, 293 children suffer from a non-fatal unintentional injury caused by a fire or burn.
- Home fires account for nearly 90 percent of all fire-related fatalities.
- 77 percent of families have not developed and practiced a home fire escape plan, one of the most important components to surviving a home fire.
- Fire can spread rapidly through a home, leaving a family as little as two minutes to escape safely once the alarm sounds.
- Safe Kids and the United States Fire Administration are encouraging everyone to create and practice an at-home fire escape plan.
- Download our fire escape worksheet, in English or in Spanish. The worksheet provides a diagram to help children and parents work together to create and practice their own fire escape plan.
 Additional Tips for Planning and Practicing How to Escape from a Home Fire
- Make sure there is always an adult around to help young children and others who might have difficulty escaping.
- Make sure all windows and screens can be opened quickly.
- Security bars should have a quick release device so you can open windows and doors in an emergency.
- For upstairs windows, have an escape ladder that fits your windows. Make sure your children know that the escape ladder is for emergencies only and is not a toy.
- Practice feeling the door, doorknob, and cracks around the door with the back of your hand to see if it is too hot. Help your children practice this step.
- Teach children to “get low and go” if there is smoke when they are leaving the home.
- Choose a safe place to meet in front of your home where you can be seen from the street.
- Once out of the home, stay out.
- Wait to call 911 until after you are out of the home.
- Make sure your street number is clearly visible from the road.
Apartment buildings require extra steps:
- Know all of your building’s fire escape exits.
- Use the stairs to get out when there is a fire, never the elevator.
- If you don’t hear the building’s fire alarm, pull the nearest fire alarm “pull station” while leaving the floor.
- If you encounter heavy smoke or flames as you leave, find another exit or return to your apartment.
If you cannot safely escape your home or apartment:
- Stuff the cracks around the door and air vents with duct tape, towels or clothing.
- Call 911 and tell them where you are located.
- Open the window and signal for help with a sheet or flashlight.
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