Save Yourself From Dying In A Crowd Fire

Part of emergency preparedness is not letting your death become a headline somewhere. Probably not all of those people who died in that nightclub fire in Brazil had to die. If some of them had been prepared for such an emergency, they might have lived.

Every so often there is a horrible fire in a crowded place and there it is in the headlines. You can do a few things to lessen your chances of being in one of those headlines.

One of the things you need to know to be prepared for a fire in a crowded place is that when there is a fire you don't have very long to get out safely. Here is an article about the fire in Brazil and how to be prepared for that kind of emergency:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/27/world/public-fire-safety/index.html?eref=igoogledmn_topstories

Here is an important quote from the article: "In most nightclub fires you 

only have a few minutes to find a way 

out," Glenn Corbett, an associate 

professor of fire sciences at John Jay 

College, said Sunday. "In Rhode 

Island, it was 90 seconds." 

He is talking about a fire in Rhode 

Island in 2003. People got out of that fire 

by finding other entrances besides the 

main one and breaking out windows to 

leave that way.


Surprise, Corbett says there are two main 

things to get you through such an 

emergency - one is PREPAREDNESS. 

The other is reacting quickly.


The National Fire Protection Association 

has a list of safety tips on its site. It starts

with how to decide whether to go in that 

place at all.


It is a good idea to check to see whether 

you think the place looks safe from fire 

and you can get out if you need to. Are 

the exits clear and easy to exit? It is safer

if the exits open outward. If there is a 

stampede, inward opening doors may 

become a death trap.


Here is a link to the NFPA's fire safety 

tips for assembly places:

http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?

categoryID=852&itemID=21091&URL

=Safety%20Information/For%20consum

ers/Occupancies/Nightclubs/assembly%

20occupancies/Educational%20message

s/safety%20tips

They are kind enough to have a printer friendly page that you can print out for reference and to share.

Here is another site for fire safety in assembly areas from the police in Hyderabad India: http://www.hyderabadpolice.gov.in/CrowdSafety/FireSafety.htm

I like this site because they don't assume people know anything and cover the basics very well. Not all countries have a large staff of paid government fire inspectors checking everything that is built and opened for business. I would like for my readers to be safe everywhere.