Download the PDF file: Fire In The Home

Be Prepared 

Plan for an Emergency! 

• Bring everyone in the home together and plan how each person would get out in case of a fire. Where possible, identify two ways out of every room. Involve the children in the home in the planning so that they know what to do to get out safely.
• Make sure that someone is given the job of helping small children, the elderly or people with a disability to get out in an emergency.
• If you have deadlocks on your doors or locks on your windows, make sure everyone knows how to unlock them. Leave keys in the locks whenever anybody is at home.
• Choose a safe place outside your home for everybody to meet after they escape the home. Your meeting place should be at the front of the home (e.g. at the letterbox). From here you can organise calling the fire service and wave them down as they come up the street.
• Make sure everyone in your household knows the emergency phone number - 000 (zero zero zero) - and how to use it.
• Equip your kitchen with a fire blanket and a fire extinguisher. Store them away from the stove, near an exit and learn how to use them. You should not put your life in danger to extinguish the fire. If you are not confident then close the door on the fire and evacuate everyone from the home before calling 000 (zero zero zero). See our Home Fire Safety fact sheets – Cooking, Fire Extinguishers for Domestic Use, Extinguishing a Fire and Fire Blankets

If a fire starts in your home

• Remember that smoke is the biggest killer in fires.
• Heat and smoke rise - so get down low (under the smoke) and escape using the safest door or window. As you escape yell and bang on the walls and doors to make sure that everybody else knows about the danger.
• Before going through a closed door touch the handle with the back of your hand. If the handle is hot don’t open the door as the fire is on the other side. Find another way out. If you are unable to get out any other way, use a sheet or clothing to seal the bottom of the door and wait at a window for the fire service to rescue you.
• Once outside go to your meeting place. Call the fire service on 000 (zero zero zero) from a neighbour’s house, a public telephone box or a mobile phone.
• Never go back into the home for any reason until the Fire Service or Police have said it is safe to do so.

If your clothes catch Fire - Stop, Cover, Drop and Roll

• Stop moving immediately.
• Cover your face with your hands to protect it from the heat and rising flames.
• Drop to the ground.
• Roll back and forth on the ground to extinguish the flames.
• Cool burns for 20 minutes with cool running water. DO NOT use creams or ice as this can further damage the skin.
• Call an ambulance on 000 (zero zero zero).

If Someone Else’s Clothes Catch Fire

• If a fire blanket, a woollen blanket or large garment (e.g. an overcoat) is close at hand wrap it tightly around the victim and pat or squeeze to extinguish the flames.
• Get the victim to drop to the ground and roll back and forth (as described above).
• Cool burns for at least 20 minutes with cool running water.
• Call an ambulance on 000 (zero zero zero).

For further advice:

Email: mfs.communitysafety@eso.sa.gov.au

Phone: (08) 8204 3611

Country Callers: 1300 737 637