Three young children die in house fire...

[rebelcowboysnb]

I've see this first hand twice in my life.

First time was two adults an there dog. The dog apparently never woke up, the woman didn't ether. The man managed to roll out of bed but the way to the exit was not clear an he never made it to the back door that was 10 feet from his bed. I was the second one on the scene at 2.5 minutes an it was to late.

The second was a 2 year old. The house actually exploded an blew the front door 30 yards off the house in the middle of the day. Everyone got out but the 2 year old that was in the far back of the house. When we got there it was probably to late but we tried to make entry threw the bedroom wall. But no one could tell us where the kid was. Kid was under the bed right where we were going in but was to late by then. Kid had several minutes to get out but climbed under the bed that was under a window.


Children are almost always found under beds. Its there natural reaction to danger. If you do not drill them on how to go out windows there reaction to a fire will always be to get under the bed. Forget doors. Most housed only have 2. Windows are everywhere. Teach kids how to use them. I don't care if its a second story. The fall is nothing compared to burning to death.

Don't wast your money on fire extinguishers only to forget training your kids how to get out. Let the house burn but save the people. Smoke alarms with strobes in every room. Beds pushed ageist walls under windows to climb on to get out. Never leave junk in the way of you exit.

You will have a house burn down in your life. Its not a what if, it a when! So train for it.

I had a video online but its acting up. Its shows that you have about 3.5 minutes after a fire starts to get out or you wont. It takes almost half that to set off the fire alarm. You would not believe how little time that is.


Thought I would add that even though I do have a fire extinguisher in my truck I do not keep one in my house. I believe they mess up your priorities. If you have a fire an you dont have one you automatically get everyone out an call for help. If you have a fire extinguisher your brain turns to "save the house" mode. By the time you use up that fire extinguisher an realize how little they do, you have wasted to much of the time you have to get your family safe. So I don't have one in the house to distract me from my priorities.

 

[acid_chipmunk]

I agree with Rebel.

I am a 911 dispatcher and can't stress enough that working smoke detectors DO save lives. Having a fire extinguisher is just going to hamper you leaving the house. STUFF can be replaced, LIVES can't.

I just had a structure fire here at work last week and the caller was arguing with me about leaving the house. The number one thing we tell people if there is ANY probabaility of fire, is "GET EVERYONE SAFELY OUT OF THE HOUSE". This guy argued with me, and finally with me pratically yelling at him, I got them to leave the house. It's a good thing too. His small electrical fire, turned into a fully involved structure fire. First fire apparatus on scene, less than 2 minutes after dispatch, reported flames through the roof! Now, imagine had the caller had a FE, and tried to put it out himself and not gotten his family out. We would have been making some pretty heart wrenching phone calls.

And, the OP posted that it took 9 minutes for the first fire truck to arrive on scene. In my county, that is not uncommon. Every fire dept here is totally volunteer. You have to remember, people have to get up and drive to the fire station, get in the truck, and respond to the scene. A lot of houses in my county are 30 minutes or more away from a fire truck. There is why working smoke detectors are stressed!

Please take a minute to check yours!

 

[Mrs. Turbo]

mine went off last night as I was cooking dinner.

Most house fires around here that kill people don't have working smoke detectors in them. That battery can save your life.

 

[Judy]

My son lost his home to fire last spring. He, wife and six kids are fine. Smoke detectors did not alarm til after the circuit breakers started popping from the fire, which spread via the attic. They are safe because the circuit breakers popping woke him up.

Next house gets smoke detectors in the attic, too.

Took the fire truck nearly 20 minutes to get there though it is about 2 miles away. Dispatch called the wrong fire dept. who went out hunting for the house in the wrong town. This happened because he called 911 on his cell. Not supposed to, of course, but it did.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Yea, 911 with a cell is hit an miss. But 911 is not a real number anyway. There is a real 10 digit number that rings that phone but the phone company forwards the call code 911 to that number. If you use a cell phone it always helps to know the 10 digit number to your dispatcher. If I dial 911 here on my cell I get Jackson County Alabama dispatch. If I drive northwest in to Jackson County an dial 911 I get Marion County Tennessee dispatch. To get Dade county Georgia dispatch I have to dial (###) ###-4111 or 4911. (hiding actual county code but you get the idea)

 

[Judy]

Quote:
My son knew to call 911 from the land line, and that a cell call would go to the next county -- he's been a vol. fireman, has friends in law enforcement and 911 dispatch, so even with his house on fire around him, he thought of this. But by then there was no power and he didn't have a phone with a wire that works on phone co. power, as all phones used to. So he told them his town, but they messed up anyway. And his cell # is an exchange (the three digits after the area code, for young folks) from a completely different town, in a third county, in another direction.

911 REALLY needs straightening out. So many folks are getting away from land lines entirely now.

 

[chubbydog811]

I'm not really one to talk, because I hold a grudge against our FD and dispatch...I can say that our fire dept. is only 2 minutes down the road (I think volunteer, though all live in our town), and it still took them a 1/2 hour- 45 minutes to get here. The barn was already gone by the time they got here.
At least 3 different people called it in - first call, they didn't believe them, and said it was just a small forest fire. Second one called, and they said the same thing. Third time was from us and that one finally made sense to them...I don't think our town was even the first to the scene. It was the town next to us.
On top of that, our house was about 5' from the barn that was burning, but the house was NOT on fire, even as the barn was burning right next to it...Our chief was going to let the house burn down, instead of pointing some of their hoses at the house. My father had to yell at them to make them save the house (note: there wasn't even any water damage to the house...Just the vinyl siding melted off, and the siding under that got a little crispy. There were also 3-5 different towns that were called out).
I'm sure there is more to the FD than I give credit, but they lost a good amount of my respect - at least our town's anyway...Our town likes to see things burn to the ground...It's actually a reoccurring theme that they are always late, and everything is always let burn to the ground.
But again, my opinion is also tainted, mostly because of the fact that we lost 6 horses to it, and almost lost our house because of them.

I know how it feels to lose those who you are close to - the horses were my special ones. My first pony, my show horses, and a few rescued. It really sucks.