User`s guide

14 D-301438 AMBER SELECT / AMBER SELECT
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USER’S GUIDE
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: HOME FIRE ESCAPE PLANNING
HOME FIRE ESCAPE PLANNINGHOME FIRE ESCAPE PLANNING
HOME FIRE ESCAPE PLANNING
The onset of a fire can often spread rapidly throughout your home, leaving you with little time to escape safely.
Getting out of the house depends, largely, on advance warning from smoke detectors together with an advance
planning strategy – namely, a home fire escape plan familiar to all members of your family and which has previously
been put into practice.
Perform the following steps:
• Make preparations with members of your family to conduct an evacuation plan.
• Draw a floor plan of your home, displaying two possible exit areas of each room, including windows. Don’t
forget to mark the location of every installed smoke detector.
• Test all smoke detectors periodically (this must be performed in a qualified testing laboratory), to ensure their
serviceability. Replace batteries as required.
• Make sure that everyone understands the escape plan and is able to recognize the sound emitted from the
smoke alarm. Verify that the escape routes are clear and that doors and windows can be opened easily.
• If windows or doors in your home have security bars, make sure that the bars have quick-release
mechanisms on the inside, which, in the event of an emergency, can be opened immediately. Quick release
mechanisms do not compromise your security, but increase the likelihood of safely escaping a home fire.
• Practice the escape plan at least twice a year. It is important that all members of the family participate,
especially children and grandparents. Allow children to master the fire escape planning procedure before
holding a fire drill at night while they are asleep. The objective here is to perform a fire drill, and not to frighten
the children, so informing the children of the fire drill before they go to bed can be as effective as a surprise drill.
If children or others do not awaken promptly to the sound of the smoke alarm, or if there are infants or family
members with mobility disabilities, make sure that someone is assigned to assist them in the fire drill and in the
event of a real-life emergency.
• Agree on an outside meeting place where everyone can meet once safely out of the house premises.
Remember to get out of the house first, and then to call for help. Never go back inside the house until
authorized by the fire department.
• Ensure that all members of the family memorize the emergency phone number of the fire department. This
will allow a member of the household to call for help from a cellular phone or from a neighbor’s home.
• Be fully prepared for a real fire: when a smoke alarm sounds, get out of the house immediately and do not
return to the house until authorized to do so by the fire department!
• If you live in an apartment building, make sure that you are familiar with the building evacuation plan. In the
event of a fire, use the stairs, never the elevator.
Inform guests or visitors to your home about your family’s fire escape plan. When visiting other homes, ask the
occupants about their escape plan, if they have one. If they do not, point out the importance of such a plan and offer
to help them prepare one. This is particularly important when children attend “sleepovers” at friends' homes.
Warning
Owners Instructions Notice: Smoke detectors shall not be removed by anyone except by occupants.