How Can Closing Your Door at Night Save Your Life?

We all know "stop, drop, and roll," but a new fire safety tip is equally important: "close before you doze". Learn why in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, production of I Heart Radio. Hey
brain Stuff Lauren Bogobam Here. On a cold night in Fairfax, Virginia,
firefighters were dispatched to a house fire, where on arrival
they were told that everyone had exited the building. The
Fairfax County Fire and Rescue team went in to extinguish
the fire, which was in full force with rolling flames

(00:23):
and thick smoke. Two firefighters entered ahead of the crew
to search the home. As they were turning to finish
their search, one heard a voice calling for help. They
found a girl behind a closed bedroom door. The interior
of the house was burnt and smoke covered, but what
the firefighters saw behind the door was a clean room.
One of them said in a video showing footage from

(00:45):
the fire, there was no smoke in the room. It
was completely clear. I noticed that there was no soot
on her. She didn't have any signs of smoke in
hillation or anything like that. She was just completely clean
due to the closed door. Most of us are familiar
with fire safety tips like stop, drop and roll, and
get low and go, but a decade of fire safety

(01:05):
research has shown that closing doors can also be life saving,
especially when getting out in case of fire is not
an option, so let's introduce a new one, close before
you doze. We spoke with Jennifer Williams, a marketing specialist
with the u L Firefighter Safety Research Institute and organization
that advances fire research knowledge and develops cutting edge practical

(01:26):
fire service education. She said, we're looking to create a
generational behavior change of closing doors before you go to
bed at night. In general, it's not something that people
think about and they certainly don't correlate doing it to
fire safety. According to u L, of house fire deaths
occur between eleven pm and seven am, and of people

(01:47):
surveyed did not close their bedroom doors at night. You
might think that a closed door would be no match
for a house fire, but the difference between how a
room with an open door and a room with a
closed door survive a fire is dramatic. Smoke moves up
and out and fills a room from the top down,
so it reaches the floor last, which means it can't
seep beneath the door easily. That's why we're taught to

(02:09):
stay low in the case of a fire. Firefighters have
long understood the benefit of compartmentalizing a fire. Fire needs oxygen, fuel,
and heat to survive. Thus, if a fire can be compartmentalized,
its spread will slow because it lacks oxygen. If the
oxygen supply is cut off completely, the fire may even
go out. If you close your bedroom door at night

(02:30):
and a fire starts in the kitchen while you're sleeping,
you may have enough time to wake up and figure
out what to do. This could give you enough time
to exit the building or call nine one one, but
also might give you a safe place to wait for
the fire department while those smoke, heat, and toxic fumes
remain beyond your door. Also, in a bedroom with a
closed door, even when a fire is raging outside, the

(02:52):
temperature can remain below a hundred degrees fahrenheit or thirty
seven celsius, with carbon monoxide levels at one hundred parts
per million. Compare that to a room with the door open,
where temperatures can quickly rise above a thousand degrees fahrenheit
or three seventy seven celsius and carbon monoxide levels become
extremely toxic at ten parts per million. Of course, though

(03:13):
if you can get out do Williams says that you
should actually close as many doors as possible at night.
One reason it's so important is that home fires spread
more quickly today than they used to. Forty years ago,
we had about seventeen minutes to escape a house fire,
but today that's down to three minutes or less. We
can thank contemporary building practices and synthetic materials for the change.

(03:37):
So far, the close before you doze campaign is working.
Williams says that Americans who have seen the message say
they'll close their bedroom doors. The remaining nine percent say
they won't because they don't want to be separated from
children or pets. But for those nine percent or anyone
who occasionally forgets, Williams reminds us that other fire safety
measures are equally important in the home, especially working smoke alarms.

(04:01):
She says every home should have smoke alarms on every
level of the home and inside and outside of every
sleeping room. Be sure they're hard wired together so that
if one goes off, they all do, alerting you to
a fire anywhere in the home. Ideally, you should check
them every month. You should also create a fire escape plan.
It should include two ways out of every room and
a meeting place outside, and you should practice it a

(04:24):
drill is a great way to teach your children what
your smoke alarms actually sound like. Today's episode was written
by Dr Carry Whitney and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain
Stuff is a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
For more in this and lons of other home safety topics,
visit our home planet how stuff Works dot com and

(04:44):
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