How to Survive in a Fire

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Should you ever find yourself in a fire whether it be in the woods or in a structural fire there are ways to survive. Knowing these ways can mean the difference between life and death. Should you be in an area where it is consumed by fire if you can find anything like a blanket or sheet too wet and wrap yourself in it will help prevent your clothing and hair from catching on fire right away. Try to cover your mouth and nose with a shirt or cloth to help filter the smoke in the air. Smoke inhalation can cause you to lose consciousness and end up seriously injured if not worse. Stay low to the ground when trying to escape as smoke rises and typically is thicker the higher up you go. Be careful of kicking in doors, walls, or busting out windows in a building that is on fire because you can experience a severe flashback. This is been a massive amount of oxygen enters the room feeding the fire and, in essence, causes an explosion of flame.

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If you are outdoors and have a fire moving toward you where you are trapped one of the few options you have is to dig trenches around the area where you are to prevent the fire from reaching you. You would be surprised as a last resort how often digging a hole can come in handy in saving your life. Should you be caught in a forest fire always watch for which way the animals are running for they will know the way out better than you. Keep these tips in mind and should the unfortunate situation occur where you are caught in a structural fire or a wildfire you might just have the needed information remembered to make a difference in life or death for you or someone else.

 

As soon as you realize a fire is happening, get up and walk over to your door to feel if it is hot. If the knob or door is hot, there is a big chance fire is on the other side. So, if that is the case, try climbing through a window if that is your only escape route. If the door is not hot, then open the door and get out in the nearest exit

 

The impulse would be to proceed to the exit when a fire breaks out. But that impulse had cause deaths in many instances because the exit area is clogged with people. Worse, it can also cause an stampede that can kill you even before the fire reaches you. Instead of rushing, give yourself time to assess the situation for at least 30 seconds before making your move. Avoiding not only the fire but also the smoke would save your life.

 

That is a good bit of information, that animals are often the most perceptive indicators of a natural disaster. They will generally be able to sense any sort of trouble coming. It is good to own a medium-sized dog. if not for that reason alone.

I had a car catch on fire in the winter with a leaky gas rail. Lucky for me, there was so much snow around; that the damage was minimal. It is definitely a scary situation though, when you are there facing it. Fire is a powerful force of nature. The whole thing could have exploded. They typically fill cars with gasoline to cause explosions in the movies. But, I think that it could logically explode even without packing it.

I think most house fires are caused by poor electrical systems or cigarette smoking. A neighbor of mine had once burned down his house by falling asleep with a lit cigarette in hand.

 

One of the most common ways by which people get killed in a fire incident is not by the flame itself but rather through smoke inhalation. So, it's very important to find and break open any window or doors to let in fresh air immediately. You can mark spots in your home where in a fire incident will be the best place to break out from. I've also heard pouring water all over yourself instead at the fire will minimise the harmful effects of smoke inhalation.

 

Fire has always been one of my top worries. Besides having fire extinguishers, I've also bought fire-proof blankets and am aiming to buy masks against smoke.

 

Really helpful information on surviving a fire. I personally subscribe to the fact that you should never kick in doors and windows, again always be careful about the smoke they can most times cause more harm than the fire, in many cases it has been found that the smoke was responsible for death during a fire.

 

I can say I may very well have set an all time record for fighting and putting out the most forest fires in a single year in the state of Mississippi ever . The months after katrina there was a lot of fuel on the ground and because of another fire fighter having a broken leg I had one of the most fire prone areas in the entire state to battle pretty much by me an one helper . I had my family tucked away in another state where I was building my present survival retreat so fighting fire was all I did . I just got naps and a quick bite of food between fires . I was fighting wild fires day and night for about six months .A trick that honestly I have never used if trapped by a wild fire , is to set a fire preferably where there is low fire fuel , wait to give it time to spread a few feet and then simply step or jump over the flames into the burned out spot it left , just stand or if need be for oxygen get in a low to the ground stance . You will have just set a back fire and the flames will be running away from you leaving you in an widening black and burned out area . I would consider this a close to last strategy to use . The reason I have never had to resort to this .

 

Good morning Poltiregist,

May I ask you to say above somewhat differently. I am not that clear as to why the flames leave the newly created burn area.

Do the flames seek other flames to thrive ?

I've dealt with wilderness fire fighters over the years and they even talked about radioactivity in flames. Couldn't grasp some of the material they mentioned.

 

Fuel such as grass burns up quickly , likely in seconds , leaving a burned out but likely smoldering blackened ground . Something I didn't think to mention in my above post , if winds are high it would be beneficial to be standing on the upwind side of your backfire when you light it because the wall of fire you have to cross will be lower on the backing fire than the head fire . Another component to this tactic is fire builds momentum as it travels . Your recently lite backfire will not have time to build momentum . You can actually jump through the flames to reach your burned out spot even wearing cotton clothing with zero burns if you pass through the flames fast enough . To answer another question , yes flames will form a vacuum of sorts and suck into each other . The same reason a fire tornado can form . As for the concern about fire radioactivity , I have never heard of that but quite frankly if I was about to be consumed by fire , getting too much radiation would be not on my list of things to be concerned about .

 

Good afternoon Poltiregist,

Most appreciated.

The fire fighters I was with used the "radioactivity" example to explain something like the mentioned "vacuum". Couldn't follow their thoughts.

These folks carried a pole with a small mud flap attached ... believe this is what you mentioned in original post above. Will be looking for a flap and appropriate fitting of some sort for my pike pole. It's easy enough to evac with something rolled onto a pole.

Again, Merci to get me focused.

 

Fires are fought differently in Mississippi than some other places such as California . The fire flap you mentioned was also occasionally used on a small low intense fires in Mississippi . The main fire fighting technique was to plow a fire lane using a small bulldozer and fire plow . A backfire man would follow the bulldozer lighting a backfire in the ever enclosing circle so the backfire would burn away from the fire lane before it could gain momentum and create an ever widening non burnable area for the wild fire to come up against . That is the reason a two man crew could put out a fire in a relatively short amount of time . I would sometimes put out 5 or so fires in one day . In some states the environmentalist are so concerned about that upturned dirt created forming the fire lane they make fire fighters fight fire with one hand tied behind their backs . Thus they are reduced to only using hand tools and water hoses . Their fires could be drastically reduced if they were allowed to use the fire plow and backfire method .

 

I actually had a friend who had a fire recently and wasn't really prepared for it. I stumbled on this article and this gives you a general guidelines of how to prepare yourself - I keep it on future reference https://www.shrink-service.it/s/zkpajm

 

Good morning Robin Wood 01,

Welcome to the Forum. Glad to have you aboard.

Will glance at the link soon.

 

I am a retired wild fire fighter and perhaps hold the state record ever in the state of Mississippi to fight the most wild fires in a single year , " hundreds " in a matter of about six months following the devastation of hurricane Katrina . This thread makes me think of the time my boss was following me backfiring as I corralled up a fire by plowing a fire lane around it . There was a screw up and another firefighter corralled us up with his fire lane and backfire . Now my boss man is hard to rattle but that day I saw the fear in his eyes . I just stayed calm and actually was enjoying the fire as it shot out of the top of trees around 80 feet high . I took the blade of the dozer to push us a path out of the inferno . When a fire looks bad just stay calm and think .

 

In a building fire, never stand up, stay low. This is not just because of the smoke and toxic gases. The heat differential between floor area and ceiling area is mind-numbingly huge. Ceiling area temps can go hundreds of degrees -- well-past kitchen oven maximum temperatures. Stand up and you could suffer heat injuries that are instantly fatal. First, all of the skin of your head will be baked off in a flash. Test the temperature with your hand and you will lose your hand.
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Used to be a fire fighter explorer. I can tell you that my experience being in a smoke house where the temperature was north of 300 degrees Fahrenheit it is indeed black! You can hardly see anything. Stuff in your house will make lots of very black toxic smoke in very short order.

Stay low, follow the wall and find the door or window. Consider using a bunch of LED night lights around the house to help aid the way. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=led+night+light&ref=nb_sb_noss

You can always shove clothes or what ever under a door to prevent smoke entry.

If a doorknob is hot, DO NOT open it. If the door is buckling, DO NOT open it. Find another exit if at all possible.

I can't remember if it's the sixth of seventh floor, but stay at least no higher than the sixth floor of a hotel. If there's a fire, the ladder can only reach the sixth or seventh floor. And as a security precaution, stay on the second floor on up. Crime happens on the first due to a quick get away. I read this in a book written by a former CIA agent.

For me personally, I have an ABC fire extinguisher near the fire place, in the kitchen and downstairs. When a fire starts call the fire department FIRST! Then you should leave the house and dispatch will tell you this. If it's small you could put it out with a fire extinguisher, but you should leave the house after calling the fire department.

Have three types of alarms in all main rooms and floors of your house. A smoke alarm that uses radioactivity smoke detection and one that uses an optical sensor that detects smoldering fires that just start out. They do sell dual combination units like this. In each main room and on each floor have a carbon monoxide detector. I use versions that have a display that show the part per million (PPM). No, those cheap Chinese crap versions are NOT what you want. Buy name brand, your life depends on it. China could care less. CO (Carbon Monoxide) is an odorless, colorless gas that can kill you. The effects are headache, nausea and maybe confusion if I remember right. You'll go to sleep and not wake up much like hypothermia. I personally chose to use lithium ion batteries for my smoke and CO detectors since these are slow drain devices and a lithium ion battery will last longer. Every weekend check the smoke and CO alarms with their test button's.

Be mindful of CO with a propane heater in a tent or wherever. Use adequate ventilation. Same goes for running a car in a snow storm. Make sure that tail pipe is clear of snow. Some houses for what ever reason have their furnace vent pipe off to the side of the house. Make sure snow doesn't clog that up or you'll have CO gas build up in the house. If the furnace vent isn't tall enough on top of the roof, the snow layer on the roof could block it. Just a few weeks ago I saw a doctor's office with a very small furnace vent pipe on the roof ripe ripe for this very situation should we get a few feet of snow.

Keep a car window breaker in the car, ALL of your cars and an ABC fire extinguisher. To break a window, hit the corner where it's weakest. They also have a seat belt cutter. https://www.amazon.com/car-safety-glass-breaker/s?k=car+safety+glass+breaker

 

Good morning F22,

Best floor level for safety depends on the area's specifics. Some places are well established to work rescues from high floors while others are not - even if the hotels are famous international companies.

Corporate security managers check all this as a routine part of their jobs.

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Next to fire extinguishers: Work Gloves !