Planning for a Fire in Your House

Submitted by: Bob Norton, Public Information Liaison for the Haddam Volunteer Fire Company.

Firefighters train year round on the best ways of attacking fires – brush fires, car fires, telephone pole fires – and yes, structure fires. Until a new member has participated in Firefighter I Certification training and/or has participated in a controlled “live burn,” the full appreciation for the complexity of what happens at a structure fire is not realized. Even with an excellent response by a well equipped and well trained Fire Department, fires can be devastating. The fire in Stamford on Christmas day killing three children and two adults is a clear example of how the best and bravest can not always get to everyone in time.  Everyone can help themselves by doing a few things in advance within their homes.

“Plan for the worst and hope for the best” is an old adage well served for planning for a fire in your house. If the unthinkable happened tonight, would your family be prepared to exit the house, perhaps using alternate paths, and safely meet at a common point outside? If the stairs from the second floor were blocked by smoke and fire, how would you get out? Is there an emergency ladder or window to a porch roof that you could use to get out? Do the windows on that basement bedroom work freely to allow the child who sleeps there to exit in a few seconds if that is their only way out?

If you are not able to get yourself out either due to a medical condition or if smoke and intense heat has filled the house, our trained Firefighters will make every effort to get in. Make sure the hallways and rooms are free of clutter and easy to move about. Only you know the layout of your house, so Firefighters coming in may never have seen your house and will have to move quickly in unfamiliar surroundings to get to you and your family. They will plan routes to get you out, and emergency egress points to bail out themselves if conditions deteriorate rapidly. Think twice before you move that piece of furniture into the hallway or pile those boxes near an exit. Ask yourself if they would hurt your chances of getting out, or a Firefighter’s chance of getting to you if that passage-way were filled with thick dark smoke.

Time is the enemy in a fast moving fire. If you can learn of the fire earlier, you will have more options to get out. Working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are crucial pieces of equipment. No one should be sleeping in a house without them. If construction is being done and they are silenced to prevent accidental alarms due to dust, detectors must be re-activated prior to going to bed. They should be tested frequently, and batteries changed every six months.  If possible, alarms can be professionally monitored and can notify the Fire Department before it can be called in by telephone, saving precious minutes.

Air and free movement of heat throughout a structure are also factors that affect the fire spread within a house. Keeping doors closed will hold even an aggressive fire perhaps long enough to get out. A fully involved basement fire may be contained there long enough to allow a family on upper floors time to exit – unless the door to the basement is left open, in which case the fire could quickly move to all floors of the house. Do not cut holes in floors to add vents in order to allow heat to rise between floors – this creates a perfect chimney to draw a fire through all floors of a house.

Firefighters practice several times a month in order to be able to be at our best.  It is everyone’s responsibility to take the time to discuss evacuation plans, make sure the smoke/carbon monoxide detectors are working, and that no hazards are present that would help a small fire turn into a devastating fire.

More information on the activities of the and ways you can get involved can be found on our website – www.HaddamFire.com.