Fire Safety at Home

I remember going to school and having fire drills. I personally loved it because we got to get out of whatever class we were in and meet up with our buddies in the school yard.

In my 12 years of school and hundreds of fire drills, there was only one real fire in our school which was in a garbage can and was put out right away.

We dont realize however, that fire drills are not just for schools.

Every home should have an escape route and a meeting place and G-d willing, we should never ever have to actually need them but every month or so it is so important to practice an emergency plan with our families.

We happen to have a very good friend who is a retired fire chief. We call him Captain Rick.

I asked him if he could come over one day and talk to my kids about fire safety which he was more then happy to do.

So a few days ago, he came over. He sat all the kids at the kitchen table and went over the general fire safety rules- not playing with matches, stop drop and roll,  how to dial 911 on the phone and to memorize our address etc.

He went over a few different scenarios of types of fires that could happen and what to do in each situation.

We then went to each of the kids bedrooms and he showed them the best way to escape out of their windows if G-d forbid they woke up and their door was jammed shut and too hot to open.

We made a buddy system where the older kids would help the younger ones.

We designated a meeting place (the mailbox) where everyone would run to in case we had to evacuate the house. We actually acted it out and had the kids all run to the mail box when he yelled FIRE!

He showed the kids how to crawl out of their rooms to the nearest exit if there was lots of smoke and how to actually stop, drop and roll.

We put up a fire extinguisher on the wall just outside our kitchen so should there be a fire, you run out of the kitchen to get it, not into it.

It was really interesting and he was very serious with the kids, compare to his usual jokey self. The kids really took in every word he said and had lots of interesting questions. We decided we are going to practice once a month to keep it fresh.

He also inspected my Shabbos candle spot  to make sure it was safe- I got the thumbs up :)

So if you have a fire station near by, it wouldn't hurt to go there and let them know you homeschool and to ask if one of their guys can come over one day to talk to your kids about fire safety and set up some evacuation plans at your house. Chances are, they will be more then happy to help.

Hashem should bless us all with health and long life, but at the same time, it is important to be safe!

Here are some great Jewish safety resources-

Wishing you all a wonderful week!

Always,