FOR BREaAKING tNEWS VIhSIT WWWo.QNS.COmM e NOVEMBER 12, 2020 •AT HOME • THE QUEENS COURIER 33
Three fi re safety tips that could save your life
Once a house fi re starts, you have three
minutes or less to escape. UL Firefi ghter
Safety Research Institute (FSRI) is encouraging
everyone to take three critical steps
to help protect themselves and their loved
ones should a house fi re occur.
According to a recent survey from UL
FSRI, more than a quarter (27%) of people
estimated they would have more than
three minutes to safely exit their home
in the event of a home fi re. Although a
majority of people understand that they
need to quickly exit their home, 47.8% of
people believe they would have enough
time to gather what’s important to them
and safely exit their home.
“What we see from our annual safety
survey is that many people still underestimate
the danger of a home fi re,” said Steve
Kerber, vice president of research at UL
FSRI. “During a fi re, rooms can quickly be
fi lled with toxic smoke. What is particularly
concerning is that people think they
will have time to gather what’s important
to them, ignoring the likelihood that
smoke will have reduced visibility and can
cause harm quickly.”
UL FSRI’s new video shows how a room
becomes unlivable in just three minutes,
underscoring the need to get out quickly.
Here are three simple, potentially life-saving
fi re safety behaviors people can adopt
to give them more time to respond and
escape in the event of a fi re:
Check Your Smoke Alarms
Have working smoke alarms on every
fl oor of your home, including inside and
outside every sleeping area. Check your
smoke alarms monthly and replace them
every 10 years. Smoke alarms give you
and your loved ones the earliest possible
warning that there is a fi re.
Create an Escape Plan
Have an escape plan and practice it;
know two ways to get out if there is a fi re.
If smoke blocks a door or fi rst way out,
use your second way out. Also, if your
fi rst way out is blocked, get a closed door
between you and the fi re to buy time to
use your second way out, especially if that
requires escaping out a window.
61.8% of respondents indicated they
have a fi re escape plan, but more than half
(56%) only review that plan once per year
or less oft en. Nearly 40% of people have
no escape plan at all.
Close Before You Doze
A closed door can be an eff ective barrier
against deadly levels of carbon monoxide,
smoke and fl ames, and may give you more
time to respond to the smoke alarm. In
fact, there can be a 900-degree Fahrenheit
diff erence in room temperature between
a room with an open door and one with
a closed door, with the open-door room
reaching temperatures of 1,000 degrees
Fahrenheit or more. In 2018, UL FSRI
released its “Dramatic Diff erence” video
demonstrating this comparison.
Th e annual fi re safety survey conducted
in September 2020 shows that many misconceptions
still exist around fi re safety.
Only 35% of people always sleep with
their door closed, up from 26% in 2019.
And while more than half of the responses
(58%) indicated that they would be
alerted to a home fi re by their smoke
alarm, one-third (33%) of respondents
hold the belief that they would be alerted
by the smell of smoke, while another
9% believed they would be alerted by
other factors such as temperature or a
family pet.
“While some people think they will
be alerted to a home fi re by the smell of
smoke, if someone is asleep, they would
likely be incapacitated by the smoke
before they could ever smell it,” Kerber
continued. “Our new video drives home
the point that fi re moves fast, and people
should be prepared now with smoke
alarms, escape plans and by closing their
bedroom doors at night.”
For information on the research behind
these life-saving initiatives and more fi resafety
tips, visit CloseYourDoor.org.
— Courtesy of BPT
/WWWo.QNS.COm
/CloseYourDoor.org
