Emergency Preparedness- Fire Saftey

This year my family has decided we needed get more prepared for calamities that could happen personally to our family or to our community.  With a tight budget these past few months we have been grateful for both our financial reserves and our food storage.  However, there is room to improve.

Sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming, that is why this year we have decided to do one or two things each month to get further prepared for whatever may happen.  This month we chose:

FIRE SAFETY AND PREPAREDNESS

After clumsily setting the oven on the wrong setting and filling my kitchen with smoke.  I decided the batteries in the smoke detector had to be dead.  Checking the detector I discovered there were no batteries in the device. (So much for working detectors when you move into an apartment)  A fire alarm makes an ugly decoration, now it is actually useful.

This also made me realize we had no fire extinguisher in the house.  Hm, I would much rather extinguish a small fire than run from a big one.

Speaking of evacuating if a fire did happen what would  I want accessible to grab quickly and go- like a flashlight, shoes, or blanket.

We do have an evacuation plan though!  One out of four.
So this month our checklist consisted of:

1. Make an evacuation plan
2. Make Bedside emergency kits for everyone
3. Test all smoke detectors and change batteries
4. Get a fire extinguisher- replace expired ones