Fire safety

There is something that bugs me.  We often put things on the staircase if they need to be brought upstairs or downstairs, or on the landing before the staircase. It makes sense, I do it all the time as well. 

But before bedtime only a tiny thing can remain on the staircase (a pen, a rolled up small T-shirt tuck "under the step" or so) and also the landing to the staircase must have a clear path without obstructions.  So when I see this example by Kabouter who prepped his schoolbag and puts it "ready to take downstairs with him" for the next morning, he needs to come and fix it.

This is fixed... 

If there is ever a fire, the smoke alarm sounds at night, you are half asleep, there is smoke in the hallway, you only have 1-2 minutes to get out of the house: then you have no time to move things.  You must be able to race down. 

This tiny awareness can maybe save their life one day. 

 

Do you pay attention to your emergency path at home? Are you aware of your fire safety?

I have had numerous discussions with my mother who is very burglar aware and ensures she locks the doors and windows etc well.  I refuse to lock my door when I am inside. Obviously we (and she!) have no front door that opens without a key, so outsiders can't give themselves access without malicious intents and tools.  And if they want access, they will access, I'm sure.  The lock will slow them down, I agree and might demotivate them. True. But as long as I'm inside, I trust that they need to make some noise. And if they ever get in, we'll suffer material damage.

But when there is a fire, once again, you might not see the key with smoke reducing visibility to zero.  In the panic, you are not certain you'll manage to quickly unlock the door to get you outside.  If this fails, it's not going to be material damage you suffer but your life.  So nope: my door is not locked from the inside if I'm home. I feel very unsafe when "locked in". Literally trapped. 

Something else that we have is fire blankets on multiple floors.  I've trained once with them and I'm impressed by their functionality.  And as stated in the training: they can make you a path through a fire or protect your body if you need to get through flames.  
Since we have a traditional old house that is basically one high staircase with not much other options, I have fire blankets on the upper floors to help me if we need to get through that staircase as only pathway. 

And obviously all floors have smoke detectors. There's 5 of them in the house.  An essential one is the one placed in our basement on the dryer.   Did you know that dryers are the number one cause of devastating house fires?   Most fires (quantity) start in the kitchen, but in the majority of those cases there is a person present which helps to contain the fire really quickly.  But driers are working unattended. 

So I've placed a smoke detector on the drier itself (with the low ceiling, it should detect an issue quickly) and I am also pretty strict in cleaning out the dust filter.  On the other hand, I used to only run the drier when I am at home, but with our solar panels I've stopped that little rule.  I might put in a load of laundry that washed during the night in the morning before leaving to the office, I must admit. 

Am I totally fire-safe? Probably not at all.

I just realize that we don't have a smoke detector on our main floor, since that is the living room with open kitchen and it is not recommended to have a smoke detector near a kitchen.
But we tend to also charge numerous devices unattended and also overnight in that living room.  So that is a potential hazard. 
Personally, I don't charge my phone there but next to my bed at night... Not quite recommended, is it?

What else should I pay (more) attention to?