E.D.I.T.H. stands for Exit Drills In The Home. It'a fireman's way of saying that to increase your safety at home, you should plan and know what to do in a house fire before it happens.

Would you know what to do, if in the middle of the night you woke up with smoke and fire in your home? That is not the time to think about what you should have done, rather it’s the time to actually put into play your EDITH plan.

Of course, having as much warning as possible greatly increases your chances of successfully executing your EDITH plan. That early warning can come from well placed and working smoke detectors. To learn more about smoke detectors and their proper placement, click here.

After your smoke detectors are installed and they’ve been verified to be in good working order, your next order of business is to design your home escape plan. So just what is a home escape plan anyway? Very simply, it’s a plan of action designed for a family to accomplish when a fire occurs in your home.

It’s important for everyone in your family to participate in the designing plans stage. Get everyone together at the same time and discuss who does what in a fire. A floor plan sketch will greatly assist everyone in understanding their roles in a fire. It’s also important for everyone to have at least two ways out of their rooms.

Here’s a pdf file that you can print for reference.

Planning ahead

• The obvious one is to plan ahead. Installing smoke detectors and designing an escape plan is the cornerstone of EDITH.
• It’s imperative that every family member knows what to do in the event of a fire in their home. Unless a small fire can be easily controlled, the fire-fighting should be left to the members of the fire department and that family members escape safely from the home.
• Plan an escape route in the event of a fire. It’s very important to always have two ways to get out of a house. (1) The normal exit.(2) A different exit through a door or a window in case the normal exit is not useable.
• Purchase window chain ladders for exiting from above the first floor.
• Make certain that windows can be quickly opened from the inside in the event you must exit a fire.
  Discuss and agree on what to do with a pet if a fire breaks out. You may not have time to save your pet.
• Plan an outside meeting place where family members can gather after escaping from a fire. Go to your designated meeting place and stay put. Once out, stay out! DO NOT GO BACK INSIDE. Invisible toxic gases can kill you. If a family member or a pet is trapped, let the fire department rescue them.
• Bedroom doors should be closed while people are sleeping. It can take a fire 10 to 15 minutes to burn through a wooden door and that time can be used to successfully escape from a burning building. The windows in a bedroom can easily be the second way out.

What to do in a fire

• You wake up in the night to the constant, loud beeping sound of your smoke detector. It is very dark and you cannot see anything. You smell smoke. Do you know what to do?
• When you are in your room and you hear a smoke alarm go off – or someone yelling "Fire!" or "Smoke!" – there is only a few minutes to get outside. Don’t waste time checking to see if it’s a false alarm.
• Treat all alarms as if they are for real and react immediately. If it’s a false alarm you can laugh about it later.
• Get down on the floor and crawl low. Both heat and smoke rise, so if you stay between 12 and 36 inches off the floor, you will be safer from high heat and toxic fumes. Smoke is the natural by-product of a fire. The smoke can be very hot, prevent you from seeing and make it virtually impossible to breathe. That’s why, in a fire, it’s important to crawl low under the smoke. Smoke and heat rise so the best place to find fresher, cooler air is near the floor.
• Check doors before opening. Look for smoke seeping around the door frame. Feel the door with your hand. If you have a solid door, it will be hot to touch if there is fire on the other side.
  Open doors slowly and carefully. Be very cautious. Even of you have checked the door, there could still be fire on the other side. When you open the door, put your head down and tilt your face away from the opening. Open the door just a little so that it will be easy to close if you detect fire.
  Close doors behind you. Remember that closed doors slow the flow of oxygen to the fire and give you added time to escape.
• Learn how to escape through windows. If you are on the first floor, exit the window feet first. Grab the window ledge, hang down as far as you can, then jump. Do not exit a window higher up with an escape ladder, except as a last resort.

How Much Time Do You Have to Get Out of a Fire?

• Not as much as you think. Real fires are hot, smoky and dark. You may have only a very few minutes to safely escape from fire.
• If you're ever in a fire, don't spend time getting dressed or trying to gather valuables. Just get out and stay out. Then call the fire department from a neighbor's telephone.
• Make sure everyone understands that getting out is the first priority. And remember, once you're outside, stay out.

Special considerations

• Special needs may be required for infants, young children, disabled or the elderly. These provisions should be included in the home fire escape plan and fully discussed with family members.
• When they’re afraid, children commonly seek sheltered places such as a closet or under the bed.
• Encourage them to exit outside. Do not allow them to hide. Making a “game” out of exit planning and it might make them feel more secure.
• Make sure children can operate the windows, descend a ladder, or lower themselves to the ground through a window. (Slide out on the stomach, feet first. Hang on with both hands. Bend the knees when landing.) Lower children to the ground before you exit from the window as they may panic and not follow you.
• Have children practice saying the fire department number, the family name, and street address into the phone.

Meeting outside of the home

• All family members should meet at a safe meeting place that was discussed when planning EDITH.
• A special meeting place should be established a safe distance from the house. It could be a mailbox, the neighbor's driveway or a large tree in the yard. This prevents family members from wandering around the neighborhood looking for one another, and worse, being tempted to re-enter the burning house for one thought to be trapped inside.
• Once outside at the special meeting place, a person can be sent to the neighbor's to call 911.

Click here to visit Suffolk County’s Fire Rescue Emergency web site for information about EDITH.