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Fire Safety Awareness for Seniors

As we approach the holidays, everyone needs to take precautions against home fires, which is why October is Fire Prevention Month!

However, fire safety is especially important for older adults, who are 2.5 times more likely to experience an injury or a fatality from a home fire. Whether your older loved one lives by themselves, lives with a family member or lives in some type of senior living community, it’s important to know how they can prevent fire injury.

Our experts have put together a fire safety checklist to help you and your loved ones make sure they are prepared to prevent and quickly address home fires.

Why Seniors Are at a Higher Risk

To properly prepare older adults for fire safety, we first need to look at what puts them at an increased risk for fire injury and fatality.

Limited Mobility

Many older adults, especially those in assisted living communities, struggle with mobility issues. They can struggle with:

  • Moving quickly during emergencies
  • Navigating traditional evacuation routes like stairs
  • Inability to move around obstacles
  • Needing assistance to move

Sensory Impairments

Sensory issues can also increase an older adult’s risk of being injured during an emergency. They can struggle with:

  • Hearing traditional smoke alarms
  • Seeing obstacles in the way of their evacuation route
  • Smelling smoke caused by a fire
  • Struggling to notice injuries and burns from a reduced sense of touch

Slower Response Times

It’s common knowledge that as we get older, our bodies slow down, and this can affect older adults due to:

  • Evacuation routes taking longer
  • Obstacles being difficult to navigate around
  • Traditional routes like stairs slowing down the escape process
  • Additional time needed to find safe exits

Fire Safety Checklist

Here are some measures you and your loved ones can take to improve fire prevention and overall safety and security during house fires:

Safe Cooking Practices

From 2017 to 2019, cooking was the leading cause of fire injuries, accounting for 51% of all home fires. When focusing specifically on senior safety, here are some fire prevention tips to help keep your loved ones safe.

  • Stay in the kitchen while you are frying, grilling, boiling or broiling food
  • If you are simmering, baking or roasting food, check it regularly and use a timer to remind you that you are cooking
  • Keep anything that can catch fire away from your stovetop
  • If you are frying anything on the stovetop with oil and you see smoke, turn off the burner and remove the pan immediately. Smoke is a sign that the oil is too hot
  • Always keep a lid nearby if you cook with oil. If your pan catches fire, do not use water to put the fire out. Instead, put the lid on the pan and remove it from the burner. Watch it while you leave it to cool down
  • Wear short or tight-fitting sleeves when cooking to prevent your clothes from catching fire
  • Keep pot handles turned inward to prevent spills
  • For fires inside a microwave, keep the door closed, turn off the device and call the fire department

Electrical & Heating Safety

Older adults often feel chilly and may use outdated heating elements that can easily catch fire. Here are some fire prevention tips for electrical and heating appliances.

  • Recognize the warning signs of faulty wiring (flickering lights, switches being hot to the touch, switches emitting an acrid odor, discolored cords/outlets/switch plates, repeatedly blown fuses, and regularly blown circuit breakers)
  • Don’t run cords under carpeting, bedding or other combustible materials
  • Avoid placing cords in hallways and other high-traffic areas where people could trip over them
  • Discard frayed or broken cords, and never splice two cables together
  • Don’t overload outlets or use extension cords in place of outlets. If you need additional outlets, hire a licensed electrician to add more outlets
  • Ensure plugs fit snugly in outlets to prevent shock and excess heat. If plugs are loose, hire an electrician to repair them
  • Consider installing arc-fault circuit interrupters (AFCIs) in your home, as they will shut off electricity when a dangerous condition occurs
  • Consider installing ground-fault circuit interrupters (GFCIs) in areas like your bathrooms, kitchens, garages and basements. They shut off electrical currents when they become a shock hazard. You should have already installed them in all outdoor outlets
  • If you are using small heating appliances (portable heaters, electric blankets, etc.), make sure there is only one plugged into an outlet at a time and that the model you have has an automatic shut-off timer. Do not keep these heating appliances near anything combustible

Habits & Environment Changes

When considering fire prevention, you can add some habitual and environmental changes to your fire safety checklist to reduce the risk of your loved ones being injured by a home fire.

  • Sleep with your bedroom door closed to prevent a fire from quickly spreading to your sleeping area
  • If you smoke, smoke outside and extinguish your cigarette/cigar entirely before leaving it unattended
  • If you have a fireplace, use a screen heavy enough to stop rolling logs and large enough to cover the entire opening to catch flying sparks
  • Make sure the fire in your fireplace is completely out before going to bed or leaving it unattended
  • Regularly clean chimneys, stoves and other areas where an open flame may be
  • Make copies of important documents, and keep them stored in a secure place that is not in your home
  • Make sure your house address number is clearly visible from the street, especially at night, in case emergency services need to find your house quickly
  • If you live in a multi-level home, see if you can sleep on the ground floor to avoid having to use stairs or ladders when escaping a fire

Alarms and Alert Systems

Alarms and alert systems are essential for knowing when there is a fire and escaping quickly. However, it’s vital to make sure those alert systems are appropriate for senior living environments to maximize safety and security. Here is a good fire safety checklist to follow regarding alarm systems.

  • Conduct monthly tests of smoke alarms and replace batteries regularly
  • Since some older adults struggle with hearing and vision loss, consider upgrading to ‌strobe lights, bed shakers and vibration alerts
  • Replace smoke alarms every 10 years to ensure you have the latest versions that are tested and verified to work
  • Carbon monoxide is just as dangerous as home fires. Install both carbon monoxide detectors and smoke alarms. Some alarms are combination smoke and carbon monoxide (CO) alarms
  • Install alarms on every level, in every bedroom

Escape Plans & Preparations

While we can do everything possible for fire prevention, sometimes emergencies still happen, and we have to evacuate quickly during a home fire. Here are some tips to ensure you are prepared to evacuate quickly in the event of a fire.

  • Create an escape plan for each room, since you never know where you will be in your home when a fire occurs. Try to plan for at least two exits per room and a designated spot outside where family members can meet if they are in different parts of the house when a fire breaks out
  • Practice your home fire escape route once every six months. Your goal is to escape the home within two minutes easily
  • Make sure that all windows and doors work correctly and are not blocked, so you can easily use them to escape if needed
  • Keep fire extinguishers on every floor. Make sure everyone in the home knows where they are and how to use them
  • Consider keeping fire blankets around the house, either to smother fires or to protect yourself as you leave your home

Emergency Preparedness in Senior Living Environments

Now you know what items to add to your personal fire safety checklist, but what about senior living communities? Older adults in senior living environments like Emerson House at River Pointe have more support in day-to-day life. But in the case of an emergency, families can worry about their loved ones getting lost in the chaos.

Thankfully, our Mosaic communities, like Heron Pointe Senior Living, take many precautions to prepare for emergencies such as a fire. Every resident has different needs that can affect them in an emergency, so it’s essential to know how our team can maintain their safety and security. Here is how we focus on senior safety with a fire.

Creating Escape Plans

Having a plan is essential for safely and quickly escaping the building in the case of a fire. At our communities, like Sunnycrest Senior Living, we create effective escape plans in the case of a fire by:

  • Ensuring residents have at least two exits per room
  • Keeping pathways and hallways clear so that if residents need to escape, there will be fewer obstacles in their way
  • Creating different evacuation routes for various areas to prevent exits from being blocked because of crowding
  • Designating meeting spots outside for residents to gather. We provide staff with updated lists of which residents should be in the building, so they can quickly identify which residents are safe and coordinate with other team members to ensure everyone is safely evacuated.

Regular Fire Drills

The best way to prepare for an emergency is to practice evacuation routes. That way, not only will the team be able to maintain a level head to ensure residents’ safety, but residents will also be less likely to panic, making it easier for them to evacuate the building. For our fire drills, we:

  • Conduct fire drills at least once a quarter
  • Have two drills each quarter: one during the night shift, and one during the day shift. This allows team members and residents to be prepared for a fire at any time during the day or night
  • Revisit our evacuation plans and look at ways of improving them on an annual basis. We examine the complications that occurred with each fire drill, what caused them, and how we can improve them so residents and team members can evacuate quickly and safely

Clear Signage & Accessible Exits

During fire drills, it’s easy for older adults to become disoriented – lights flash, the alarms buzz loudly and everyone files into the hallways to evacuate. One way we help seniors stay safe is by assisting them in knowing precisely where they need to go. We do this by:

  • Ensuring clear and brightly lit signage shows where the exits are located
  • Making maps available in each room for residents to study, showing their specific evacuation route and where the closest exits are located
  • Educating residents about the locations of fire evacuation maps, fire extinguishers and exits
  • Keeping hallways and doorways clear for accessible exits
  • Making sure decorations and additional signage do not block fire exit signs

Extensive Staff Training

Our staff are responsible for helping residents escape in the case of a fire, so it makes sense that they receive extensive training on how to keep residents safe during an emergency. Here is what training looks like for our team members.

  • Initial training covers how to identify fire hazards in senior living environments, how to use equipment like fire extinguishers and fire blankets, and what methods to follow in case of a fire
  • We require regular training sessions to refresh team members on the above information. We understand information can become hazy over time, and we want to update our team regularly on safety protocols to maintain the safety and security of our residents
  • We conduct regular fire drills. Team members can expect situations that may arise during an evacuation. If they encounter difficulties, they can review the obstacles they faced and learn how to make the evacuation process smoother and faster
  • We assign staff to residents with different mobility issues who might struggle with evacuation. They can quickly find and assist those residents to ensure they are safe

Fire Education for Everyone

Fire prevention awareness and fire safety education give everyone the knowledge they need to maintain their individual safety and security. They should be an essential part of everyone’s fire safety checklist. We support fire safety education by:

  • Writing fire safety blogs like this one
  • Hosting events where residents and their families can learn about senior safety during a fire
  • Producing educational materials like pamphlets and flyers that residents can read on their own time
  • Inviting firefighters and other officials to talk with residents about fire safety and provide their own materials for them and their families to read

Find Confidence With Mosaic

Whether you are looking for a senior living community for yourself or for a loved one, our Mosaic communities provide the safety and security you need to enjoy a worry-free retirement. If you have questions about life within Mosaic, we encourage you to contact our team.

However, if you’d like to take a tour of one of our communities, we encourage you to use our helpful tool to find a community near you. Our team can easily help you schedule a tour so you can start seeing the best community for your needs.

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