This past Friday night around 8:00PM, my family and I heard a fire truck and an ambulance head past our house. We live on a busy street, so we paid little attention. However, additional fire trucks and ambulances kept going by. Sensing that something big was happening, my younger daughter and I put on our coats and headed up the sidewalk in the direction of the rescue vehicles. Over the trees, we could see thick, white smoke billowing from the townhouses about a quarter of a mile from our house. As we got closer (well out of the way of the responders, of course), we could see yellow flames shooting up from the end unit of one of the townhouses. The unit was completely engulfed in flames. A horrible sight to witness. Tragically, we read the next morning that someone had perished in the fire.

Having two children at home, I spent a lot of time the next day reading about fire safety. (See firesafety.gov.) Most of what I read emphasized that a home fire safety plan should show two ways out of every room. On Saturday night we went over the evacuation routes for everyone in the house from every room in the house and determined a place to meet following an evacuation.

Take a look at your evacuation routes at work. Are there places along those routes that someone could get trapped by a fire? If so, revise that evacuation route. Always look for two ways out.

The National Fire Protection Agency has published a planning guide for evacuating people with disasbilities.  Here’s a description of the guide:

“It provides information on the five general categories of disabilities: mobility impairments, visual impairments, hearing impairments, speech impairments, and cognitive impairments. It also outlines the four elements of evacuation information that occupants need: notification, way finding, use of the way, and assistance.

The Guide features a checklist that building services managers and people with disabilities can use to design a personalized evacuation plan. The annexes give government resources and text based on the relevant code requirements and ADA criteria.”

Click here for a nice update on the recovery efforts at the Georgetown Public Library in the District of Columbia.

Yesterday, a fire swept through the Georgetown Public Library, a branch of the public library system in Washington, D.C., causing significant damage. For a report of the incident, see this article from libraryjournal.com.