Fire and emergency evacuation
Information for Queensland public housing tenants.
Being prepared and taking simple precautions at home can help keep you and your family safe from fire.
Safety tips for your home
- Maintain smoke alarms: follow the instructions on your smoke alarm sticker (usually stuck to the inside of your linen cupboard door) to make sure your smoke alarms are working properly.
- Plan your escape: sit down with the whole family and make a simple plan for evacuating your home if there is a fire.
- Practice your escape regularly: practice your escape at night with the lights on and with the lights out—during a fire if the smoke is thick it is very hard to see. The air is much cleaner and cooler near the floor so practice your escape on your hands and knees—remember to ‘get down low and go, go, go’.
- Organise a meeting place: decide on a meeting place for your family after you evacuate your home—for example at the front of your house near the letterbox.
- Draw a floor plan of your home: plan 2 escape routes out of every room and make sure everyone knows them.
- Teach children how to escape by themselves: make sure they know 2 exits out of every room.
- Check windows and doors often: make sure all windows and doors can be used as an escape route in an emergency. Any keys for locked windows and doors should be kept nearby.
- Keep a torch in good working order: smoke is dark and can make things very hard to see—having a good torch could help you and save lives in an emergency.
- Teach everyone how to phone 000.
Example of a house floor plan with two escape exits out of each room
Fire plans for units
If you live in a unit complex, fire evacuation plans have been installed in common areas to help you evacuate from the building safely and quickly.
Take the time to look at these plans and remember the possible escape routes you can take in an evacuation.
Example of a unit complex evacuation route
Safety tips during fire
- Never look for the source of a fire—get everyone out of the building as quickly as possible.
- If there is a fire in a room but not the whole house, get out of the room and close the door behind you—this will help slow the fire and smoke from spreading to the rest of the house.
- If you can feel heat through a closed door, it is too dangerous to open. You must exit through another door or window.
- If heat and smoke are coming into the room through an open door, close the door and get out through another exit.
- After your household has evacuated, an adult should check that everyone is OK and call the fire brigade (000) immediately.
Operation Safehome
Book a Safehome visit. It’s a free service to help you safeguard your household against fire danger.
