Few things are as frightening as the prospect of burning to death in a fire. Many people live in fear of something like that happening.
Now suppose you wake up to find that your home is on fire. You’re terrified. What do you do? What do you grab, if anything at all?
Do you just try to get outside as quickly as possible? Or do you happen to have a plan in place?
People shared their stories with us after Redditor T3ermin8or asked the online community:
“If your house was about to burn down, what would you try and save first?”
“I truly had to think about this…”
“I truly had to think about this last night as the Colorado fires were just a few miles away. It was devastating looking around the house and realizing so much in your house doesn’t matter.” ~ BatmanandMe123
“We both went into robot mode…”
“We had to evacuate last night and it was the craziest feeling. Luckily our house is okay. We both went into robot mode just efficiently getting what we need, popping the dogs in the hatchback, and off we went.”
“We were in traffic on 287 when I realized that my wife and I forgot our winter coats, she was wearing slippers, and I’d left my wallet and every important document we have in my office. Glad I remembered the almond milk though…” ~ gregmaddux
“As time went on…”
“Retired Firefighter here. When I was a kid our house burned down. As time went on, it was the family photos we missed the most. I always grabbed photo albums when I saw them. The owners often cried when they realized the photos were saved.” ~ Skyist
“I guess I’m supposed to say…”
“I guess I’m supposed to say my children, but I’ve got a chocolate orange I’ve not started yet. So it’ll be a tough one.” ~ Good-Helicopter-9303
“You don’t have time…”
“This is gonna sound outrageous, but in a fire emergency, this will save your cats’ lives… Put the cat in a pillowcase. Carry them out that way. You don’t have time to get their crates, and you definitely don’t have time to fight with them about going in them.”
“Put the cat in a pillowcase, and you’ll be able to safely and quickly transport them to safety and hold them securely. If you carry them out in your arms, they may jump down and sprint away, or claw at you in fright.”
“But a cat in a pillowcase, no matter how angry and traumatized they might be, is staying in the pillowcase. If it’s a life or death, burning house emergency? Put your cat in your pillowcase.” ~ PotassiumArsenic
“Assuming my family…”
“Assuming my family and dogs are safe and my important documents are in the safe where they belong I have a couple guitars that have sentimental value to me. I’d grab those.” ~ GuntherPonz
“I have a bag of documents…”
“I have a bag of documents that are a pain in the ass to get. Birth certificate, taxes, diplomas. Thats an easy grab, once i have that, i grab my pets, and, if i have time, my box of MTG rares, including my Unlimited Dual Lands, which I’ll offload to offset the costs of recovery.” ~ WanderingGenesis
“In the hallway closet…”
“In the hallway closet there is a box containing all of my family’s photos. I would grab that and get it out as soon as possible. Any photos on the walls are copies.”
“If I had time the next thing would be my home server. It has a s**t load of important files and about 10 TB of movies and TV shows which would help pass time in the hotel or wherever after the fire.”
“I also have a bunch of ammo that’s not in a fireproof safe so I would want to get that out so it doesnt go off and hurt anyone. But the pictures are #1 priority. I plan on digitizing all of them but it’s a lot of work.” ~ immacannibal
“There’s really nothing sentimental…”
“My lungs. Instead of saving material items, I would much prefer to leave as quickly as possible to avoid exposure to the incredibly toxic smoke.”
“There’s really nothing sentimental in the apartment (all old photos have been backed up on a cloud service) and everything else is covered by insurance (video going through all the possessions is also on the cloud).”
“Sure it will be a burden to deal with insurance, but stuff is just stuff and is all replaceable. Other than that, I don’t know if it counts, but I do keep a set of pajamas and slippers on the window sill. It is placed here intentionally so that it can be grabbed in the event of an emergency.”
“If I’m sleeping (always naked), I would grab them on my way out. Doing so should hopefully spare my neighbors the immediate vomiting associated with seeing the grotesque sight of my naked body.” ~ SandwichFries
“We do our best…”
“Firefighter here. We do our best to conduct salvage operations during a structure fire when possible. We try to cover furniture with tarps and shove pictures inside of drawers and even save some to take out with us.”
“Your insurance can pay for the lost materialistic things but it can’t replace the only good photo you have of your loved one, and as a firefighter I do my best to prevent unnecessary damage from not only fire and smoke but water damage.” ~ Okfeeling9598
“Sometimes it feels like…”
“This has unfortunately happened to me twice in my life.”
“The first time it was in my 20s and my upstairs apartment neighbors burned the place down with a candle. I was home at the time and I went back in to grab my very valuable musical instruments. It wasn’t the safest thing to do, but I never really felt terribly in danger.”
“The second time I was/am in my 40s and an arsonist attacked one of my neighbors in my nice little quiet condominium complex at 3 a.m.. They never found the culprit. I nearly died as I slept right through all of the smoke alarms and woke up to a place on fire and full of smoke.”
“My neighbors were calling my phone over and over but it too didn’t wake me up. Fortunately for me and him, my cat was sitting right on the bed with me looking at me like, ‘Help?’ I wrapped him in a blanket off the bed and crawled my way out of the acrid smokefilled condo, touching doorknobs and hoping we both wouldn’t die.”
“Ugh, even typing it up makes me nervous. I now sleep with a smoke alarm attached to the headboard of my bed in an effort to wake me if it happens again.”
“No humans were hurt in the blaze, it burned down three families’ condos and several of my neighbor’s pets died. I live alone, so my cat was all I had to save at that point.”
“Sometimes it feels like I got struck by lightning twice. I can’t imagine the mathematical odds of having your place and stuff burn down twice.” ~ Reddit
Now that you’ve heard people’s suggestions, you hopefully feel a bit more prepared.
And if you’re not, it’s time to make a plan of some kind. Most importantly, there are things you can do to avoid fire in your home.
You can use surge protectors. You can unplug items that are not in use. Never leave flames unattended while you are cooking in your kitchen (where many fires start).
Just some things to think about… but fingers crossed that you never have to make the decision to flee your home!