Pearl Protected Urges Homeowners to Create and Practice Fire Safety Escape Plans

Just midway through National Home Safety Month, tragic house fires continue to dominate the headlines. There have been more than a dozen major multi-death house fires reported by the media in the past three weeks, including two house fires in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Louisville, Kentucky that killed seven children.

David Duley, CEO of PEARL Protected®, the creators of the patented Permanent Escape And Rescue Ladder (PEARL®) for two and three-story homes, comments: "These tragedies are horrific. But, the real tragedy is what we don't learn from the headlines. How many of us will go home and practice our fire escape plan or test our smoke alarms? It should be the first thing we think of when we hear of people, especially children, losing their lives in house fires."

Today, PEARL Protected urges homeowners and residents to complete the Home Safety Council's Home Safety Checklist which can be found online at www.hsc.org. This comprehensive checklist will walk readers through all aspects of home safety, from fall prevention to poison control and fire safety.

Additionally, PEARL Protected shares tips on how to prepare a customized fire safety plan for your home based on four critical components: prevention, detection, suppression and escape:

Prevention

• Be sure an adult is always in the kitchen or by the grill when cooking.

• Never leave a candle unattended and keep flames at least three feet away from curtains, furniture or other flammable materials.

• Keep matches and lighters out of sight and reach of children.

• Keep fuel or liquid that can catch on fire, like gasoline, propane, or kerosene, in a safe container outside of the home in a garage or shed.

• If anyone in your home smokes, use heavy, non-tip ashtrays and make sure all cigarettes/cigars are fully extinguished.

• Discard frayed or cracked electrical cords.

Detection

• Make sure you have smoke alarms on every level (even the basement).

• Check to make sure all smoke alarm batteries work. Then, check again every six months. Remember, if you're smoke alarm is more than 10 years old, replace it.

• Mount smoke alarms high on walls or ceilings. Smoke rises!

• Never remove a battery or disarm a smoke alarm.

• Make sure everyone in your home knows the sound of the smoke alarm, what to do next and that the alarm is loud enough to wake up sleeping children and adults.

Suppression

• Keep a fire extinguisher handy in fire-prone areas, like the kitchen and garage, for small fires.

• No matter how small the fire, if you can't extinguish it immediately, get out!

Escape

• Identify two SAFE ways out of every room in the house, especially upstairs. Draw these exits on a map and place a copy in every room.

• If your secondary exit out of an upstairs room is a window, have an easy-to-deploy escape ladder nearby. Permanent escape ladders are an excellent alternative. Unlike portable ladders, they are right where you need them, when you need them and are easy enough for a child to deploy.

• Practice fire escape drills twice a year. Have everyone practice escaping every room in the house and practice crawling low under smoke.

• Pick an outside meeting place where everyone can gather after they've escaped. Remember to mark this spot on your fire escape map!

• Keep doors, stairways and other exits clear of toys, furniture and other clutter.

• Memorize the emergency phone number of the fire department. Remind everyone that they should get out first, and then call for help from outside or at a neighbor's home.

• Close the door behind you. This will slow the spread of fire and smoke.

PEARL has become one of the most recognizable names in residential fire safety innovation and education. As a permanent escape ladder that is recessed into the interior wall space beneath second or third story windows, PEARL is designed to be quickly and easily deployed in the event of a fire, home invasion or other home emergency. The device features high-tech engineering and materials that make it the most reliable and easy-to-use secondary escape option on the market today. PEARL has received the Home Safety Council's 2006 Product Innovation Award and has been featured on multiple episodes of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. PEARL has been also been showcased on NBC's Today and CBS's The Early Show.