Fire Escape Plan

I just went over and talked to one of my new neighbors about using her house as our meeting place in our Fire Escape Plan. She said it was alright with her. The children's school talks a lot about fire safety and they've visited the fire house and so on. Since this is a new house, we went over it again -- never ever ever hide when there's a fire, practice two ways to get out of every room, feel the door first to see if it's hot, the clean air is down low, don't go back to get a stuffed animal, don't go back to get ANYTHING, just get out of the house as fast as you can -- and, of course, where to meet.

My dad was a fire fighter when I was a kid and I remember being amazed that my parents never cared enough to practice our Fire Escape Plan, even when the teachers at school kept telling us to talk about it as a family and practice it each month. My parents were just like, well, that won't happen. I bring this up because even when kids are young, they need to know what to do in case of an emergency just as much as they need to know never to play with matches. Actually, we happened to drive past a working house fire last summer, on our way to the Ice Cream Social, and I immediately went to get my dad (who was just a few doors down) to tell him, and the girls saw him run out the door in the pouring rain to go help. They watched the burned house get repaired with great interest, since we drive past it once a week or so.

Children can be taken to the fire house for fire safety even without being a part of a school group, day care group, or homeschool group. Trust me, the firefighters WANT to talk to your kids. They don't want them to be scared of their equipment (especially the strange noises they make while wearing the respirator), they don't want them to hide. So even if your children are young (mine are 4, 5, and 7), talk to them about fire safety. Put it in your homeschool curriculum! That's one of the things that the schools do that homeschoolers sometimes forget to add in, so I hope this reminder is helpful. I know that it's hard being a homeschooler and trying to cover it all. But fire safety is really essential for all ages.