Imagine waking to the sound of your smoke alarm in the middle of the night. It’s dark. It’s confusing. There may be smoke outside your bedroom door. How, exactly, are you going to get out? And what about other people in your home?

Fire drills are a regular part of school and workplace routines. Yet more than 80% of fire fatalities happen not at school or work, but at home.

Nearly half of people killed in residential fires were trying to escape when they died. A practiced home fire drill might have saved their lives.

Prevention 1 st Foundation, a 501©(3) non-profit injury prevention organization based in Pittsford, is sponsoring Practice Your Home Fire Drill (www.homefiredrill.org) to encourage all households to practice their escape plan as part of the biannual Change your clock/Check your batteries public safety initiative. A home fire drill twice a year is recommended by both The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

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