How To Design An Effective Fire Evacuation Plan For Your Home

The idea of dealing with a fire at home may seem like a distant warning. However, a fire can break out at any time without notice. There are several fire hazards at home, from dropped cigarettes and cooking mistakes to faulty electrical appliances and lighting. After a fire breaks out, it can spread throughout a home in a minute or two. When that happens, you will have no time to create a fire evacuation plan or help your loved ones escape.

Creating an evacuation plan will help keep your loved ones alive. Everyone in a household needs to know their role during an evacuation plan. Further, knowing the early signs of a fire outbreak, what to do when the fire breaks out, and the routes to follow will be critical to keeping members alive. Read on to learn more.

Table of Contents

Assessing Fire Risks and Hazards

How safe is your home from a fire? Creating a fire evacuation plan starts when you identify potential risks and hazards, people who are more at risk, and the available fire prevention systems at home. A fire risk assessment examines the likelihood of a fire occurring and the severity of the damage it might cause. It also determines the equipment to prevent and stop a fire and the policies or training to help prevent it.

Here are some simple steps to assess your home:

Identifying Potential Fire Hazard

Identifying fire hazards is the first step in assessing the safety of your home. While at it, you need to look out for:

Ignition Risks: Can things or items start a fire in your home? These can be heating equipment, open flames, lighters, and others. List all these sources of ignition and their locations in a home.
Fuels at Home: Fuels feed a fire, facilitating its spread. Waste papers, textiles, paraffin, petrol, plastics, and several others can aid in the spread of fire.
Oxygen Sources: Fire needs fuel, heat, and oxygen to burn. Identifying oxygen sources, such as air conditioning systems, can help you start a fire.
Electrical Issues: The home’s power source might be a hazard that leads to a fire outbreak. Assessing the home’s wiring system and the safety of appliances will help you create a safety and evacuation plan.

Identify At-Risk Groups

Who will be more affected if a fire breaks out in your home today? Older adults, children, and the sick are more at risk when a fire breaks out. The three groups may need more mobility, making it easier to escape with everyone else. People working or sleeping near fire hazards are also at greater risk. The kitchen, for instance, is a risk area, and members who cook for the family need a clear fire evacuation plan.

Identify Current Fire Safety Measures

Before creating a fire evacuation plan, you must know what measures are in place to help fight a fire. These measures might include:

Fire Suppression System: These systems detect a fire outbreak and respond instantly to stop it. Most automatic suppression systems do not require human intervention.
Detection and Alarm Systems: Are smoke and fire detection systems at home working? These systems will give warnings to make an evacuation plan work.
Fire Fighting Systems: A home with the necessary firefighting equipment will make it easy for people to escape. When creating a fire evacuation plan, having the right equipment will help you clear the way for family members.
Policies and Training: Are there any procedures put in place to help people escape a fire? Do family members know what to do in case of a fire? Safety rules at home reduce the possibility of a fire starting. Some standard rules include never smoking in the house and switching off appliances after use.
Set Escape Routes: Every home needs ample escape routes for all members. These escape routes need to be documented, marked, and easy to follow, even if someone is not familiar with the building.

Assess the possible damages of a Fire

Depending on the fire risks and hazards in a home and the available fire mitigation and fighting systems, it will be easy to assess the possible damages from a fire. The risk might be low, medium, or high, with a slight, tolerable, moderate, or extreme risk of harm. Your evacuation plan will depend on the rating of the risk.

Designing a Fire Evacuation Plan

Fires are dangerous, but when people panic, chaos erupts, and the danger increases. With a detailed and rehearsed evacuation plan, family members can escape without compounding the threat. Whether you create an evacuation plan from scratch or build on what the home already has, these steps will help you:

Designing evacuation routes and assembly points

Before you create a fire evacuation plan with routes and assembly points, you need to imagine different fire outbreak scenarios. For instance, cooking fires are the most common, followed by electrical malfunctions, heating, and arson. Understanding these causes and where they are likely to occur will help you create an evacuation plan.

You also need to understand the risks. With these dangers and hazards, you can create rules and policies that can prevent fire outbreaks. For instance, you can forbid cooking appliances outside the kitchen. After creating rules, you must create possible fire scenarios and their solutions. Your list should have questions like “What if this happens?” and answers. These different scenarios will help create collective consciousness so everyone in the business understands their role.

You can create escape routes and assembly points once you imagine the different scenarios and their solutions. This will involve an evacuation plan with primary and secondary routes. Here are some points to observe:

Create a fire evacuation plan with passages from the kitchen, store and other at-risk areas in a house
Create maps of floor plans and make them accessible from all rooms and to everyone in a home
Keep exit routes free of obstructions such as furniture
Create an accessible route for people with disabilities
Designate an assembly point outside the standard evacuation route
The assembly area should be ample enough to accommodate all family members and one person to act as a warden for the assembly point.

Creating floor plans with clear exit paths marked

Get a plan of your house to use in creating a fire evacuation plan. On that plan, you need to mark the following:

Primary evacuation route,
Secondary evacuation route,
show the stairwell,
elevator,
fire alarm,
emergency phone,
sprinkler,
security camera,
fire extinguisher,
fire alarm pull,
emergency supply kit,
first aid kit,
roof access,
assembly point, and
security rounds.

There are emergency evacuation symbols for each of the above items. Use these symbols on the house plans and transfer them to your house where everyone can see them. It would help to draw the fire safety symbols with paint that glows in the dark.

Although you can manually draw the symbols on the house plan and transfer them to your rooms, there are online tools you can use to create a fire evacuation plan. A good plan should clearly show responsibilities and a chain of command. Sharing responsibilities will help avoid confusion when a fire breaks out.

Determining primary and secondary escape routes

It would help to revisit probable fire scenarios to determine primary and secondary escape routes. From the scenarios, you can choose appropriate alternative paths for different rooms in a house. You need to consider the following:

Where is the fire likely to start?
Which exits are near each of the rooms in a house?
How accessible are exits from different rooms?
How accessible is the fire assembly point from other rooms?
Are there external hazards near your home?

Preparing for Different Fire Scenarios

Before a fire breaks out, everyone in the family needs to be ready. Readiness will involve knowing what to do and who is in charge. Give information on the primary and secondary evacuation routes; everyone needs to know how to use different safety equipment. You need to consider scenarios where:

A fire breaks out in one room
The fire spreads to other rooms
Fire starts from an electrical fault
Cooking fires spread from the kitchen
Fire blocks an exit
Fire starts when no adult is home
Fire starts from external hazards
Fire affects the structural integrity of a home

These and many more scenarios should inform how you prepare. For all the above scenarios, your preparedness should involve:

Familiarizing yourself with basic fire safety
Assessing the home for fire hazards
Installing the necessary alarms, sprinklers, and fire extinguishers in different parts of the home
Creating a fire evacuation plan
Practicing an emergency evacuation procedure for different scenarios
Train how to use fire safety equipment and perform first aid
Have emergency numbers near the emergency phone
Clearly mark exits

During a fire, people tend to panic. As such, you must create a procedure to ensure everyone gets out quickly and safely. There should be a plan to close the room door where the fire starts. If you cannot access an exit, get near a window and open it to get fresh air and stay visible. If you are on the first floor and can get through the window, drop pillows to cushion you from the fall and get out feet first.

Special Considerations for Vulnerable Populations

Your fire evacuation plan needs to consider the vulnerable groups in the home. These are babies, older adults, people with mobility issues, and people with disabilities. To do that:

Make exits accessible for people on wheelchairs and crutches
Assign one or two people to carry the older adult, baby, or disabled person out of the room
Use emergency lighting and paint that glows in the dark for people with poor eyesight
Teach older children how to respond to a fire and how to help toddlers and babies
Create a safety procedure for people unable to evacuate a room, such as having fire-safe curtains and blankets in their room.
For bedridden patients, create a fire-safe zone around them by ensuring no fire hazards are near them.

Equipping the Building with Fire Safety Tools

Fires can break out at any time and in any room. You must be ready to save lives with a fire evacuation plan. Preparedness starts with equipping the rooms with fire detection and fighting equipment. These include:

Smoke Alarms: These devices are handy in areas where a fire is likely to break out, such as the kitchen. You can have smoke alarms at home in every room and in the corridors on every level. The alarms need testing at least once a month to keep them functional. If they are battery-powered, check and replace batteries at least once a year.
Sprinklers: These devices offer a way to start fighting a fire immediately after it occurs. When sited and installed correctly, sprinklers can stop a fire from spreading and ensure the fire and smoke do not get to your family. It gives you time to escape.
Fire Extinguishers: Get an ABC-rated fire extinguisher to extinguish fires fueled by flammable liquids and gases. Install the equipment near exits and away from sources of heat. You will need training to use these extinguishers. This will help you know when to drop the extinguisher and run during firefighting.

Conducting Fire Drills and Training

Fire drills are part of an effective fire evacuation plan. These drills test the efficacy of the evacuation procedures and the preparedness of the family members. When conducted well, they will help identify loopholes in the evacuation plan, reduce injuries in the event of a fire, and identify gaps in fire safety training.

During a fire drill, family members can practice their roles and responsibilities. The person in charge can use these drills to test response times, access to fire exits, and how panic affects the fire evacuation plan. You must get all family members on board to conduct a fire drill. Exits need clear markings and a fire assembly point; everyone should know their roles. Before the drill, show the fire evacuation plan to all family members and ensure a clear communication plan.

Before the day of the drill, you need to set goals such as:

To determine response times
Check the effective use of firefighting equipment
Check how effectively people switch off equipment
Successful carrying out of different roles

Rehearse the different fire safety procedures with family members and then randomly conduct a drill. Work with realistic scenarios during the drill, such as “the kitchen is on fire” or “the hallway is on fire and the exit door won’t open,” to monitor preparedness. Conduct a fire drill at least once a year. Everyone should get to the safety spot in under two minutes after the smoke alarm goes off. If it takes longer than that, you need to conduct the drill again after rehearsing the procedures for a second time.

During the drill, your designated fire warden needs to observe the following:

Was everyone calm during the evacuation?
Did everyone meet at the fire assembly point?
Did the fire safety equipment work?
Did members close doors and switch off equipment before evacuation?
Did members contact emergency services after exiting the house?
How effective was the firefighting equipment?
Did everyone carry out their roles as expected?

After the drill, re-assess the home for fire safety and make necessary changes to the fire evacuation plan.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What should I do if a fire occurs in my home at night?

Avoid panic and use the pre-planned fire evacuation plan. Because smoke rises, get to the floor and crawl to the fire evacuation routes. Before you open the door, feel its heat with the back of your hand to know whether there is a fire on the other side. If the door feels hot or smoke is coming through the small openings on the door, use the second exit route.

Are there any apps or tools to help with creating fire evacuation plans?

Yes. You can use an app such as SmartDraw to create an evacuation plan. The apps have templates for different house plans and fire scenarios; you only need to enter your escape plan.

What should I do if someone is missing during a fire evacuation?

Inform the fire warden or the leader in the evacuation plan and gather information on which room they were last seen in. Check around the house to ascertain that they did not evacuate with everyone else. The warden will establish how safe it is to re-enter the room and access the room of the missing person. If re-entry is impossible, wait for the firefighting team to arrive and inform them of the missing person.

Is it safe to re-enter a building after a fire evacuation?

Re-entry after a fire evacuation is dangerous. Members should wait until the First Responder says it is safe to enter the house. Sometimes, the evacuation controller may assess the safety risk when someone is missing and decide whether re-entry is possible.

Conclusion

The first step in a home’s fire safety is the prevention of a fire outbreak. Even before creating a fire evacuation plan, you must follow the necessary procedures to prevent a fire. These procedures may involve practicing good habits, limiting flammable items, switching off appliances after use, and assessing electrical wiring safety. It is also essential to educate all family members on fire safety and inform them of the fire escape plan. After that, purchase the necessary fire safety equipment and create an escape plan.

How To Design an Effective Fire Evacuation Plan for Your Home