Home Fire Drill Day Plan – Are You Prepared?

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. All opinions are 100% mine.

Where do you think the majority of fires happen?

If you guessed “at home” you are correct. However, where do we practice fire drills? If you guessed “at school” and “at work” you are right again, but does that make sense? No.

In celebration of National Home Fire Drill Day, October 15, 2016, I task you with sitting down with your family and preparing a home fire drill plan because every 86 seconds a home fire will happen and YOU need to be PREPARED. The Make Safe Happen app will get you on your way!

One way to learn fire safety with your family is to incorporate it into a game, but before we share some games from Home Fire Drill Day, let’s make sure you have a plan!

Home Fire Drill Day Plan

Step 1. Know where to go.
• Pick a safety spot that’s near your home and a safe distance away.
• Explain to your kids that when the smoke alarm beeps, they need to get out of the house quickly and meet at that safety spot.

Step 2. Check your smoke alarms.
• Test your smoke alarms with your kids so they know the sound.
• Make sure there’s a smoke alarm on every level of your home, and one in each bedroom. Learn more here.

Step 3. Do the drill.
• Have kids head to their bedrooms and wait for the drill to begin.
• Got kids under 6? Assign adults to help anyone who’ll need it.
• Put one adult in charge of sounding the smoke alarm and running the drill.
• Next, sound the smoke alarm, start the timer and have everyone book it to the safety spot.
• Once everyone gets to the safety spot, stop the timer. If you all made it in under two minutes, you each get an imaginary gold medal. If not, give it another try.
• In a real fire, get to the safety spot, then call 911 and keep everyone close until firefighters arrive.

See a family fire drill in action!

Got it? Good. Now have fun with it, create a Fired Drill Plan with your children, and play some Fire Drill Games.

Fire Drill Games

Lights Off
It’s important to know how to escape if the smoke alarm goes off at night. Can you get out in under two minutes…in the dark? Practice your home fire drill at night, with all the lights turned off. If everyone makes it to the safety spot in two minutes or less, it’s a win. Recommended for kids over 6.

Prize: Stargaze in your yard on blankets, or tell ghost stories inside, with mugs of hot chocolate.

Get Low And Go
You can walk out of your home in two minutes. But can you crawl out? If there’s smoke, you’re supposed to stay low. So practice escaping on all fours from different rooms in your home. When you get outside, get back on your feet and dash to your family’s safety spot. Recommended for kids over 6.

Prize: If the family makes it in two minutes, everyone gets to sleep in a pillow fort.

The Biggest Ninja
Everyone in your family needs to know all the ways out of each room in your home. Challenge your family to think like ninjas. Whoever can identify the most ways out of every room is the Biggest Ninja. Use our worksheet [link to worksheet→] to draw all the ways out that you think of. Ninja wisdom: Not every exit is a door.

Prize: For the rest of the day, everyone gets to go by ninja names.

Take an online pledge to do your own Home Fire Drill Day!

For Home Fire Drill Day the Make Safe Happen app puts step–by–step instructions in parents’ hands to lead a family fire drill. Take a minute to download the app for yourself and check out how it works! I found it to be a great resource and really user friendly. Here are a few of the great things you will find:

• Easy to follow instructions take the guess work of doing a home fire drill
• Tips and advice are focused on your children
• A built-in timer will reinforce the need to get out in two minute or less – the average length of
  time to escape most home fires.
• Through the app, parents and caregivers are prompted to schedule their next family fire drill and learn more