Making A Fire Safety Plan For Your Family with First Alert
Thank you First Alert for sponsoring this post. October is National Fire Prevention Month and is the perfect time to gather your family and discuss fire safety.
Did you know that October is National Fire Prevention Month? When you think about it makes total sense because October is usually when we start roasting s’mores and lighting the fireplace on cool nights. So, I couldn’t think of a better time to start talking with your family about making a fire safety plan and with the help of my friends over at First Alert I want to help you and your family get prepared too.
Start making your fire safety plan by:
1. Start making your fire safety plan by installing smoke & carbon monoxide (CO) alarms.
They should be installed on every level and in every bedroom of your home. Fires don’t discriminate and can start anywhere. Having alarms in all rooms/levels gives your family the best chance of getting out safely.
2. Testing Your Alarms Regularly.
This one is so important considering that 3 out of 5 home fire deaths occur in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms. Ensure you add protection and test your alarms regularly. Ensure you do not remove your alarms or remove the batteries without replacing them. (Source: National Fire Protection Association)
Having the alarms installed is great but they need to work. Testing the alarms will ensure that they are functioning properly and let you know if you need to change the battery.
*You should change the batteries in your alarms at least every six months.*
Every six months means twice a year. To make it easier on yourself you could change them out whenever you adjust your clocks for daylight savings time. If that still seems like too much work, with First Alert you can get hassle-free protection by upgrading to 10- year sealed battery alarms to eliminate battery replacements.
3. Keeping Fire Extinguishers Handy.
The #1 cause of fires is unattended cooking and that doesn’t surprise me, especially now that I have children. I can’t count the number of times the kids have gotten hurt or just needed to be held in the middle of cooking. We have fire extinguishers in four areas of the home in the kitchen under the sink, in our loft upstairs, near our outdoor kitchen.grill and in our laundry room. Consider the kitchen, make sure to keep it somewhere low and easy to reach. Storing it above the stove may seem like a good idea but it isn’t. If there is a fire blazing there is a low chance of you actually being able to reach it!
4. Making a fire safety escape plan & practicing it at least twice a year.
Do your kids know what to do in the event of a fire in your home? Ask them…call 911? Sure, but what if they can’t get to a phone? What if they can’t get to you? What if their door is blocked? What will they do?
Truly the idea of this scares me to tears. This is why making a fire safety plan is so important. When discussing your escape plan, they should know two ways out of each room/area of your home and a meeting spot. They should know to test the doorknob to make sure their hands aren’t burnt and if their room is upstairs they should know how to use a fire ladder to escape from the window.
Once you’ve discussed how to exit it’s time to have a full on fire drill. Much like the fire drills they do at school, you all should have a designated meeting point that is a safe distance from your home. (mailbox, neighbors home, etc.) That way everyone knows how to exit the home and where to meet.
I’ll also add that it is important to be aware of your home and your kids sleeping habits. Big James travels a lot, so if we do have an emergency at home it’ll be me trying to get all three kids out by myself. You might be thinking that little James could try and help me but he sleeps like a brick. I’ve accidentally set the fire and security alarms off on a number of occasions and he was not disturbed.
For the sake of my own sanity, all of my kids sleep downstairs when daddy is out of town. If I’m going to have to fireman carry little James out of the house then I need easy access to him! LOL
It might sound a bit dramatic but protecting my babies is my top priority. As much as I love our home -they people inside are what matter most. This is a conversation that we must have when sitting around the dinner table or fire the next few weeks. Whether you live with other family, in a home or an apartment it’s important they everyone knows what to do.
So now I have to ask, will your family be making a fire safety plan?
To find out more about fire safety and prevention month click here.
Also, click here to download the fun Jr Fire Marshal badge for your little ones and here to download a safety checklist for your family.
Let’s be cozy this fall but let’s also be safe!
I feel like it’s easy to forget about that kind of stuff as well but I am definitely our purchasing these soon!
We have the carbon monoxide and fire alarm in one and any smoke sets it off. I mean bacon a little crispy and it’s going off. We have them in central locations one in front each bedroom, living room, front door and of course the kitchen. We also have fire extinguishers in my house and they are all up to date. My mom have all of our important documents in a water proof case so we know to grab that and head out. This is also central so we don’t have to search for it and it’s bright colored. But having the convo is a must and we haven’t had it in a while and I will bring it up to my folks.
Honestly, this is something I’ve not put much thought into, but it’s vital to have a plan. Thanks for putting the fire under us to get our fire safety plan going! We have a three year old and I’ll be discussing this with him this week.
Thank you for this post. I have 2 little ones as well. We definitely need to get a plan in place. ❤️ This is what I needed to get our family on track.