[Internet troll]

Hope it's okay to put this in this section. One of my common responses when some asks me why I feel the need to carry a gun to protect myself is "do you have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers? Do you keep them because you think you will need them or just in case? My reasons for carrying is similar to that.

Which leads me to ask people here, how prepared are you for a fire.

Hopefully everyone has smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in their house, but is that enough? I say not by a long shot especially if you have a family. If you have a family you should practice fire drills and make sure everyone knows what to do in a variety of scenarios.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the matter, feel free to add your thoughts and ideas.

1. I have smoke detectors in every room of the house. If a fire breaks out I want as much warning as possible. Sure it takes a bit of time and cost to replace all the batteries but losing my family to a fire scares the hell out of me.

2. I keep fire extinguishers in easy to access places. They are all the same style to that I do not have to fumble and figure out what to do. My wife also knows how to use them. I will be showing my son how one works in the next week or two.

3. We practice fire drills every 3 months. I should probably do it more. I set up different scenarios, What if we are sleeping, eating dinner, scattered throughout the house. What if there is a lot of smoke or just a little bit etc.... Most are easy except the one where it happens if you wake up to the sound of alarms. Basically if I can think of a scenario that we would not be prepared for, we prep for it. The quicker you can assess what is going on and what you have to do, the better your chances of survival are.

My wife and I know what to do. We keep a folder with important papers where my wife can quickly get it if we determine we have time. I keep my wallet and car keys in the bed room so I can quickly grab them if needed. Of course I am extremely worried about my 6 year old in this case. I have given my son many different scenarios and what the best course of action is in them.

a. He knows to Check the door to see if it is hot, if it is go through the window onto the roof outside where he can get down on the back porch.

b. I keep a fubar wrecking bar in my room so that if there is a fire and I can't get to his room through the hallway, I can go through the wall. I have a place marked off between the studs on the wall to my bedroom and his. It is a place where I know there are no pipes or wires. I can be through the wall in seconds if the need arises.

c. I have him practice stop, drop and roll. He knows that if there is smoke he should get on his hands and knees.

d. In the case that I do not get to him first and he gets out of the house on his own, he knows where to meet us at. It's far enough away from the house that we will be safe from the fire, close enough that I can quickly see if he is there.

One of the things I need to do is get a fire rope ladder. We can get out of most situations without one, but having one would make things a bit easier.


Anyone else prep for fires? Anyone else have any ideas or suggestions?


Also one of the things I struggle with is whether or not I should have my son wait for me, or get out on his own. Arguments can be made for both. Any thoughts on this?

[JustinHEMI]

My new place also has a sprinkler system, to add to your other preps which I also do.

Justin

[streaker69]

We have SD's on all levels and all garages. In areas where there's known combustion we have CO detectors as well. We have FE's on each level as well as in each garage and each car. We haven't practiced any firedrills, but our kids do know about checking for hot doors and such. The only thing we'd like to do is get an escape ladder for the upstairs.

[Valorius]

I have about a dozen fire extinguishers all over the house, including a couple really big industrial sized units. I also have emergency escape rope/tools, etc.

I have fire/carbon monoxide detectors at the top of each set of steps.

I also have a fire safe that i keep all my important papers in.

Finally, though they're not really intended for use in a house fire (or were'nt...now that i think of it, duh), i do have 2 complete head to toe nomex fire suits good up to 900 degrees F. (2 US Army flight suits with matching milspec gloves, and kevlar/nomex hoods- total cost per entire suit: $50 on ebay)

[Palerider]

Great thread. Really like the idea of knowing between which wall studs to go through.

FEs and smoke detectors on every floor. Fire escape latter in our bedroom.

We talk about what to do during a fire drill but haven't ever held a drill, think I need to...

A few years ago took an old screen and put in a downstairs window and had the kids punch it out. My fear was they're so ingrained to treat things with respect and to not break things, in a panic they'd be 'worried' about pushing it out. Honestly, they felt weird doing it, glad we did it.

Don't want to derail thread but this also then carried over into a discussion on school shootings and I said if you're on first floor and windows don't open, smash the darn thing with a chair, don't worry, I'll pay for it later.

[ArcticSplash]

Great thread. Really like the idea of knowing between which wall studs to go through.

FEs and smoke detectors on every floor. Fire escape latter in our bedroom.

We talk about what to do during a fire drill but haven't ever held a drill, think I need to...

A few years ago took an old screen and put in a downstairs window and had the kids punch it out. My fear was they're so ingrained to treat things with respect and to not break things, in a panic they'd be 'worried' about pushing it out. Honestly, they felt weird doing it, glad we did it.

Don't want to derail thread but this also then carried over into a discussion on school shootings and I said if you're on first floor and windows don't open, smash the darn thing with a chair, don't worry, I'll pay for it later.

I just had a fire 2 weeks ago. Some dipshit drunk kids went through my hood at 4 in the morning on a Thursday and lit a bunch of trash on fire in front of several people's homes.

I'm in the city, and my street has the 13' pavements, so several cars got scorched and it could have consumed some street trees. I emptied out my extinguishers so it's time to go get new ones at Lowe's.


I have a central fire alarm system but no sprinklers. CO detectors are in the basement. No need for one in my kitchen because my first floor is galley so if I did have a CO leak it would most likely waft upstairs. I have to add some CO detectors on the 3rd floor, I'll be picking up some wall outlet ones in the same trip to get the new extinguishers.


When I installed my security system and hard-wired camera system I could have gotten a separate fire detect/alarm but it's not compatible with the central alarm I already have. It's some proprietary crap and not PLC/SCADA. Kinda bummed but oh well.


Another item I need to get but have procrastinated is fire ladders for my 3rd floor. I have casement windows all over my house and sash windows in the front. Need to buy two rollout ladders in case the stairs are not useable. My rowhome has no setbacks and it's oversized for the lot with with a straight drop-off on the 2nd and 3rd floors and an extension on the 1st floor. It makes escaping the house if the first floor is fully-engulfed very difficult.

[streaker69]

I'm in the city, and my street has the 13' pavements, so several cars got scorched and it could have consumed some street trees. I emptied out my extinguishers so it's time to go get new ones at Lowe's.

If you have the type that can be refilled, I'd go that route. Contact your local FD and ask them where they get theirs refilled.

[ArcticSplash]

I'm in the city, and my street has the 13' pavements, so several cars got scorched and it could have consumed some street trees. I emptied out my extinguishers so it's time to go get new ones at Lowe's.

If you have the type that can be refilled, I'd go that route. Contact your local FD and ask them where they get theirs refilled.

Wish I had known that before I dumped mine. They were not the regular size red ones or the fullsize ones, they were those mini kitchen types you use for killing grease fires.

BTW it was USELESS with 4 kitchen bags of trash fully engulfed. As soon as I emptied the extinguisher, the flames popped right back up and almost as intense as when I started.


DO NOT BUY MINI EXTINGUISHERS. Always get the biggest ones you can get and put one on each floor of your house and one in the garage.

That was an "oh shit" moment.

[Emptymag]

I've never done drills.

I have extinguishers/detectors on each level.

I have one in my truck too and I'd like to add one to my work trailer (lawn equipment) so it's more easily accessible in an emergency than the one in the cab of the truck.

I also have a few power outage flashlights that stay in the outlet and illuminate when the power goes out.
In addition, I've mounted several of those "tap lights" in locations that are out of sight, but easily found. (under cabinets on wall at top/bottom of basement steps)

[Internet troll]

One thing my house does not lack is flashlights. I become a big fan of this flashlight which you can get from 5 and below for $5.
http://www.amazon.com/Compact-Work-light...B004NJ6JYU

It can be a flashlight, worklight or lantern. It can attach to metal surfaces with its magnet. I keep them on my safe, metal bedrails, and just about any other out of the way but easy to get to metal place in the house.

btw.... I have tons of batteries. While I have rechargeable batteries, I like to keep regular batteries also because of all the flashlights I have. I stop in Home Depot almost daily during December. They normally offer a sale on batteries (ray o vac). They sell 60 packs of batteries for $5's give or take.(if I recall correctly) They come with 30 aaa and 30 aa. They go fast. I normally pick up 5-10 packs.