Practicing Fire Evacuations for Seniors

You’ve visited your loved one’s home and made sure she has everything set up to help her get out quickly and safely in case a fire breaks out. You have smoke alarms in every room that you routinely refresh the batteries in. You have nightlights along key pathways. You have fire extinguishers ready to douse any blaze. After buying all of the important products out there to make a home safer for your senior, what else can be done to prepare your parent for a fire emergency? The answer is: practice.

Practice Increases the Chance of a Safe Fire Evacuation

If a fire breaks out in your loved one’s home, especially if it is at night, it can be very disorienting. There may be smoke making it difficult to see those nightlights and the extreme heat may cause certain paths to be completely unsafe to travel through. So, while you cannot simulate an actual fire at your loved one’s home, having her practice the steps needed to escape while it’s calm and safe can help her during the chaos of a fire.

Home Care Assistance Teams Can Help Her Prepare for a Fire Emergency

If your loved one has a home care assistance provider who routinely comes to the home, have her add it to the visit to help your loved one with proactive fire evacuation protocol. Here are steps your loved one and her home assistance provider can take to be ready for what will hopefully never happen:

• Walk through multiple escape routes from each room. While your loved one might think it silly to walk out of her bedroom and out the back door to show she knows the way, it helps secure those steps in her memory. If one escape route requires her to open a window, take out the screen, and put a fire ladder out the window for her to climb, her home care assistance provider should encourage her to practice all of the steps (except climbing down the ladder). Don’t leave the ladder in the box for it to be used the first time in an emergency.
• Clear pathways. Have your home care assistance provider routinely check all exit pathways from the home to make sure they are free from trip hazards or anything else that may make using them during an emergency difficult. Furniture should not block window exits and if a door that is rarely used (like a side door in a garage) is blocked by storage boxes, they should be moved.
• Check alarm batteries. Many smoke alarms are too high up for your loved one to routinely reach up and test. Have your home care assistance provider routinely check the alarms while your loved one is out of the room to make sure they work and that she can hear them.
• Talk about where to go after she gets out. Does your loved one know where to go and who to reach out to if there is a fire? If she is in a home, this is a good time to talk to neighbors about whose home she’ll go to if there is a fire. This will make it easier to locate her after a fire as well.

With practice, your loved one stands a greater chance of getting out alive if there is a home fire.

Reference:
https://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/deaths-injuries/older-adults.html

If you or an aging loved one is considering home care assistance in Manhattan, NY, please contact the caring staff at Touching Hearts at Home – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester, Queens, Rockland today. 646-480-6266