Comments on: 5 Famous Fires and the Lessons They Taught Us

By: Zack

Zack — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:09:18 +0000

What about the Chicago one?

By: Damian

Damian — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:04:24 +0000

No Valley Parade? Helped establish exactly how emergency services should be dealing with large fires; also played a big part in how large stadia deal with emergency situations

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:27:49 +0000

One thing a lot of households forget to include in their fire safety plan is a well planned and agreed upon place for everyone to meet up after they get out of the house. Many people teach their kids what to do in a fire and how to get out safely, but don’t ever discuss where to go once outside. If everyone doesn’t know where to meet, someone can accidently be hurt or killed going back into the burning building to rescue a loved one who was already outside. By having an established landmark everyone knows to wait at, firefighters can know for sure when they arrive who’s still inside and in need of help and who’s accounted for.

By: Fran

Fran — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:52:32 +0000

Karen, it’s not just kids and teens. I’m in my 40s and on a recent business trip to DC with fellow co-workers, they all asked me about the fire evacuation the night before. I had no idea what they were talking about. Apparently the alarms went off and most of the hotel evacuated before it was determined to be a false alarm. Lucky for me since I never heard a thing. Slept like a baby.

By: Calli Arcale

Calli Arcale — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:19:17 +0000

Adults too. Back when I was still living with my folks, my dad was toasting oak chips in the oven. There’s a perfectly sensible reason why; he was preparing to make wine in a glass carboy, and if you add toasted oak chips (to be filtered out later), you get the same flavor as if it had aged in an oaken barrel. I had gone to bed already, and he laid down for a bit while waiting, and inadvertently fell asleep. The smoke alarm woke me up, and without even really thinking about it, I went into the kitchen, assessed the situation, grabbed a hotpad, pulled the smouldering (but not flaming, fortunately) oak chips out of the oven and put them out on the deck.

Nobody else in my family of six woke up. Even the dog didn’t stir.

I’m not sure what the solution for that is, though I bet regular drills would help your subconscious recognize the alarm and jolt you awake when the time comes.

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:07:29 +0000

It isn’t just young children that sleep through smoke alarms, teens do as well. I found this out on a recent trip. The hotel fire alarm went off and I had 4 children in the room ranging in age from 8 -13 and not one of them budged. I went out into the hall to assess the situation and discovered from a maintainence worker there was no fire. But the alarm went off for over 10 minutes and the kids NEVER woke up. The alarm was very loud.

So what DO you do to wake up kids in case of a fire? I saw a voice alarm one time but that didn’t seem to work either.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:04:03 +0000

The MGM Grand hotel fire in Vegas was another big fire that brought about a lot of changes in Vegas on fire regulations.

By: Edward

Edward — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:09:38 +0000

The Rhoades Opera House in Boyertown,PA. Fire on Jan 13 1908 also led to having all doors open outwards.

By: beth

beth — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:56:27 +0000

There was a fire in my apartement building. Lucky for us it was at the far end of the building but it really has made me more prepared in general for emergency events.

In my current house, the cat carrier is under the side table next to the front door. Keys, wallet and purse are always left on the table by the front door along with at least 1 pair of shoes and a coat. This way I don’t have to search around the house to find these things and can make a quick exit.

By: OkieMelissa

OkieMelissa — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:12:21 +0000

Thanks for the post and all the responses — lots of things we forget after being out of elementary school (seems like middle and high school neglect basic fire safety) and college’s basic drills.

I think a good reminder is the PASS method of fire extinguisher usage.

Pull the Pin
Aim at the base of the fire (NOT the flames)
Squeeze the lever slowly
Sweep from side to side until the fire is completely out.

Hope this helps.
http://www.fire-extinguisher101.com/using.html