I read a really sad article today about an inquest into the deaths of seven people in a house fire. During the inquest, a recording of the 999 call was played out, and the voice of one of the children can be heard screaming for help. The article tells how the family of the deceased wept openly when they heard this recording – I can’t imagine how heart-wrenching that must be.
Reading this, it brought home to me how vitally important it is to have a plan for escaping your house in case of a fire. Preparing and practising a plan of action will prepare you in case of a fire, and will help you to act quickly. Everyone who lives in your house needs to know this plan, and it helps to practise it. Putting a note on the fridge can be an easy reminder for you.
If there is a fire, the priority is to get everyone out safely, and to call 999 so that the fire brigade can tackle the blaze. You need to know your escape route – and the easiest one is the way you would normally get in and out of your house – i.e. the front door! Most front doors are kept locked at night, so keeping the keys in an accessible place is important.
If you’re upstairs in your house, and the fire is downstairs or even on the stairs, you won’t be able to get down and out the door. In this case, you’ll need to escape out of a window. The idea of jumping out of an upstairs window makes me rather nervous, and so using a fire escape ladder is a much more appealing prospect. Our fire escape ladder acts just like a rope ladder. It is kept in a box, and if you need to use it, you open the window, hook it over the opening, lower it down and then climb to safety. Easy peasy. We have two lengths of ladder, so you’re covered whether you’re in a townhouse or a regular two storey house. Also, not every first floor flat requires an external fire escape, so this provides you with your own one.
Although I keep my fingers crossed that I won’t have to use one, it provides peaces of mind. It will hopefully also prevent my family from having to hear my last phone call being played out in an inquiry…
