Save a Life: How to escape a house fire

PITTSBURGH — You may have an escape plan for your family, but if your house is actually on fire, would you be able to get out under pressure?

The first thing firefighters with Ohio Township Volunteer Fire Company said you should do is try to prevent a fire all together.

Four things they suggest having at your house:

1. Smoke detector
2. Carbon monoxide detector
3. Fire escape ladder
4. Fire extinguisher

Kimber Credo and her three kids escaped out the window and onto their porch roof of their Monongahela home, five days before Christmas.

“It is like chaos and panic set in and all you can think of is just ‘get out of the house,’” said Credo.

She woke up at 4 a.m. up to a crackling sound. Her smoke detectors were down because they’re painting.

“I went to the top of the steps, and I saw the flickering from the fire,” she said. “There was no smoke. You couldn’t see any smoke, you couldn’t smell it, and then it’s like boom, there it is.”

Kimber immediately yelled for her three kids to wake up and get out; all of them barely in their pajamas.

“Your bad fires are in the overnight hours when people are sleeping,” said Nate Nusskern, Deputy Chief of Ohio Township Volunteer Fire Company. “Since people are sleeping, if they don’t have adequate smoke detectors, they’re not available to see it or possibly prevent it.”

Factor in wintertime, with more people using fireplaces, space heaters, and their furnace, and Nusskern said it’s a busy time for fires right now.

He took Channel 11′s Jennifer Tomazic through the company’s fire prevention trailer to show, step-by-step, what to do if your house is on fire.

• Get down low when you see the smoke and crawl on the floor, so you don’t breathe in the smoke. It will start high and then get lower.
• Use the back of your hand to check if a door is hot. This way you don’t burn the palm of your hand so you can keep using it.
• If the door doesn’t feel hot, open it, and keep crawling on the ground with your head below the smoke.
• Make sure to shut the door behind you as soon as you get through it, to try to keep the smoke from following you into the other room.
• If a window is your only way out, open it and use a fire escape ladder to clip on the window and climb down.

Kimber tried using an escape ladder when her house was on fire in December.

“I bought them shortly after I bought the house, just in case. And they sat in the boxes for six or seven years because you don’t think that this is ever going to happen to you,” said Kimber.

One thing Kimber wished she’d remembered was closing the door behind her. She said most of the smoke inhalation the four of them endured was from smoke pouring out of the window while they were sitting on the porch roof, waiting to be rescued.

Another reason closing doors is important:

Deputy Chief Nusskern shared a picture of what a room looks like that had the door closed during a fire. The door stopped the fire and there’s not much damage inside it.

Another picture shows the other side of the door, in a room where the fire was, and there was a lot of damage.

• Once you and your family are all out safely, then call 911.
• Have a family meeting spot far enough away from your house and repeatedly practice it with your kids.
• Never go back in to grab lost pets.

One of Kimber’s dogs made it out of the house safely with them the day of the fire, three of their cats were found alive a few days later, but another cat and another dog died in the fire.

“Let the fire department know and we’ll go and find your pets and get them out,” said Deputy Chief Nusskern.

He also reminds you to:

• Have smoke detectors on every floor and especially outside of bedrooms so you can hear a beep in your sleep.
• Carbon monoxide detectors are best near your furnace room.
• If the fire is smaller than you, try to put it out yourself. If it’s bigger, let the fire department handle it.

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