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Excellent advice.

Re-emphasizing having an assembly point for for family members after the fire, for quick head counting. Draw a map of your house, locations of exits, fire extinguishers and assembly points, and SHOW it to your house guests, baby-sitters, etc. (flashback to one memorable house fire, with about a dozen little girls at a sleepover party!)

Plan, and train your your family on the plan. Rehearse. Some night when you can't sleep, get up, quietly cook up a big pot of cocoa, and set off the smoke detector. Sit back and watch what happens. You might be surprised (and worried). Give everybody a nice cup of cocoa, talk it over.

Also, post your full address, cross streets and phone number by the phone. It could help a visitor, child or injured/impaired/distraught person making the call to 911, or even just to the pizza delivery guy. I was surprised to learn the number of callers who gave old or inaccurate addresses to 911 operators when under stress.

You might want to add a LOUD whistle to your grab bag. Smoke detectors don't always work, nor do they cover every emergency. A large percentage of home smoke detectors are out of service, almost always due to dead or intentionally removed batteries.

There are now smoke detectors that activate all the others wirelessly if one goes off. These are great for large or multi-story houses, and for garage and outbuilding installations. Don't forget CO detectors, fire extinguishers, and utility cut-off wrenches, as appropriate.

Lots of people sleep with their bedroom doors open, so they can hear the kids, equalize heating and cooling, etc. I do, but that's so my dogs can "patrol" throughout the house. However, be aware that closed doors offer considerable protection from fire-related hazards, for technical reasons I won't get into here.

Consider teaching your kids to close their bedroom doors at night, and close other interior doors. If it's easy for them to go out their window safely, teach them to do so as their default response to fire alarms.

Feel closed doors and knobs with the back of your hand before opening if fire is suspected. Close doors and windows behind you after exiting, if you are certain you are the last one out.

Mark the windows of bedrooms occupied by young children, the elderly, disabled or those needing special assistance to evacuate. Ask your local FD how to do this, or if they have a registry system, but consider the safety implications of marking windows visible from the street.

The speed and success of searches for trapped or unconscious victims of structure fires is vastly improved by thermal imaging devices, but some volunteer or underfunded departments don't have them yet. Consider this as a useful fund-raising project for your civic group.

After zombie attacks, a fire in the home is probably the most likely survival challenge most people will face. So it merits prominence in your thinking, training, planning and preparations.

Jeff