Fire Safety: Are You Prepared for a Fire?
One of the items on our to-do list was to get the house “fire safe.” I am a bit embarrassed how unprepared we were if we ever had a fire, but I am writing this post because I hope that if you are like me, you are encouraged to make your home safer. Kidde graciously sent me a big box of products to outfit our house with all the proper fire safety tools.
In December, my Dad came down for a few days to tackle a bunch of “honey dos” on my list. Matthew is many things, but handy isn’t one of them! Thankfully, my Dad loves tackling a long-to do list – and Elias loved helping. 🙂
Worry-Free Smoke Alarms
Before working with Kidde, I thought it was sufficient to have two smoke alarms – one upstairs and one downstairs. Boy, was I wrong. Turns out you should have them throughout your home and in every bedroom.
When my Dad installed the Kidde worry-free smoke alarms
Escape Ladders
We also had not yet invested in ladders for the second-story bedrooms, but thanks to Kidde, we now have escape ladders
We have them tucked under our beds so that they are easy to access, but out of the way of little kids who might want to play with them. We made sure to have a conversation that they are not a toy.
Fire Extinguishers
Fire extinguishers
Carbon Monoxide Alarms
My Dad also installed carbon monoxide alarms
Family Fire Safety Plan
Installing these gave us a great opportunity to talk about our own family fire safety plan. With our kids being so little, we talked about things in very broad terms with the kids, especially Elias. Adeline was present for the conversation too, but she was more worried about her baby dolls. 🙂
Resources
As your family puts together a fire safety plan, you might find these resources helpful
- FEMA Fire Escape Planning Considerations
- FEMA Fire Escape Plan Grid (a great tool to create your family’s escape plan)
- FEMA brochure about home fire escape planning for babies and toddlers
- SafeKids video about home fire drills
- SafeKids page about fire safety (scroll to the bottom for videos pertaining to families with children with special needs)
How fire/CO safe is your home?
Disclosure: The post is the third in a year-long sponsored series by Kidde. Some links are affiliate links.
Thanks for posting this, my Father died in a house fire 5 years ago on my daughter’s birthday. Fire safety is near and dear to my heart.
I am so sorry for your loss. Fire safety is so incredibly important! I am thankful to spread this message.
Thank you. It’s so important, people think it will never happen to them.
We just bought fire ladders after Christmas this year (I believe after reading about them on your blog). I just hope we never have to use them!!
Thank you for this post. I’d never even heard of fire ladders before.
Hopefully everyone who reads your blog will react and be ready. You just never think this will happen to you! We lost our home and two labs in a fire in 2005. It is such a loss, really, no words to describe. Our lives seem marked by that day. When we speak of when things happened in our lives, we refer to ‘before the fire’ and ‘after the fire’. Two things I try to encourage everyone to do ‘just in case’ is to video tape your home, open drawers, cabinets, etc., and put the tape in a place of safekeeping. For photographs, I never delete photos from flash cards anymore. When the flash card is filled, it immediately goes into a safe, dated from when I started using it, until I took it out of the camera. I’ve even encouraged others to take photos of photos in their homes. Photos that were before the ‘digital’ age. It is such a loss to not have any way of recovering photos of loved ones, especially those we’ve lost. Sorry to go on and on, but please, everyone, be safe and be prepared. -Revelation 21:5
I’m so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing your experience.
On a different subject, I happened to see what looks like a hope chest in the first picture. Please make sure that it doesn’t lock when shut….in Massachusetts, 2 children perished a month ago by hiding in the one on their home. There was no latch on the inside to let them out and no vents for air.
I know that this is so sad, but I felt I had to say something when I saw it.
Thank you so much for sharing. It doesn’t lock when shut, but it is a heavy top. How devastating for those children’s family.
Thanks for sharing these fire safety tips. I also wanted to suggest the laundry room for a Carbon Monoxide detector. Gas dryers put off CO.
We had practiced where to meet and what to do if there was a fire several times. We were so glad the kids remembered and acted quickly when we had a fire. They knew what to do and we were all safe, thankfully.