HOW TO SURVIVE   Install smoke detectors on every level of your house and outside every bedroom. Maintain them by checking the batteries at least twice a year (ex.: when you change your clocks). Make and practice an escape plan.  Always ensure you have two ways out. Put in an automatic sprinkler system.

PLAN YOUR ESCAPE

When a fire starts, it's not the time to plan.  You need to meet with your family now and make a step-by-step escape plan in case your home catches fire. Make a floor plan of your home, showing two different ways to leave your home and each room - especially the bedrooms.  Talk over the escape routes with your family. Determine an outside meeting place, a place where all family members will meet outside, away from the fire, to wait for the fire department.  When you meet there, you can count everyone to make sure all members escaped, or if you need to tell the fire department someone might be trapped in the burning building. Practice your escape plan, at least twice a year.  Do home fire drills.  Make someone the monitor, and have everyone in the family take part.  The fire drill is not for fun, but to learn and be prepared.  Get out safely and quickly. Your escape drill has to be realistic.  You can pretend some ways out are blocked by the fire and practice using the second ways out of each area.  You could also make believe the lights are out and some ways out are filled with smoke.  Be safe though.

BE PREPARED

Be sure that every family member in your home is able to unlock all the doors and windows quickly, even if they can't see.  Doors and windows with bars on them need to have quick-release devices on them and every family member should know how to use them. Living in an apartment is a little different.  Here, you have to use the stairways to escape.  Never try to use an elevator to escape a fire.  The power may go out, causing the elevator to stop between floors, trapping everyone inside, or stopping on a floor where fire is burning. If you live in a two-story home, and you have to escape through an upstairs window, make sure you can reach the ground safely.  You will have to make special arrangements to help small children, elderly adults, and disabled people. People who have a hard time moving around should keep a phone close by where they sleep.  Hopefully, this will be on the ground floor. Always check doors before you open them.  Crouch or kneel at the door, place the back of your hand as high on the door as you can.  Touch the door, the knob and all door space between the frame.  If you find the door being hot, go to another escape route.  If the door is cool, open with caution and always stay low. If you are trapped, close all doors between the fire and you.  Fill in all of the cracks around doors to help keep out smoke.  Go to a window and wait.  Try to signal for help using a light-colored cloth or flashlight.  If you have a telephone in the room, try calling the fire department and tell them you are trapped in the fire and where you are trapped.

GET OUT FAST...

Don't stop for anything if there is a fire.  Don't stop to rescue pets or personal belongings.  Leave immediately and go to your designated meeting place outside.  Once at the meeting place, go to a neighbor's house and call the fire department or pull an alarm box.  Every family member should know how to call the fire department. Stay low.  Crawl on the floor under the smoke.  Smoke has harmful, deadly gases in it.  Also, heat rises.  When in a fire, the clean air is next to the floor.  If you find smoke in your primary escape route, go to your secondary escape route. If you have to exit through the smoke, crawl on your hands and knees, keeping your head as close to the floor as possible, about 12 inches.

...AND STAY OUT