I live on the second story of a 3-story building. However, the 1st story is below ground. It's called "garden level", also known as "high risk of flooding". The "backyard" is a grassy embankment with warning signs to not walk there because it's dangerous. So obviously, all the tenants walk there all the time, and go in-and-out of their units by the back doors.
So my apartment has the front door, and front window. And I was attending a fire fighters' presentation about "close before you doze" where they advocate closing interior doors to stop the spread of fires. And this seems like a great idea. I quizzed the firefighter about my best recourse to emergency exit or refuge if the fire is blocking my front door exit. He said that it's probably best to simply jump from my 2nd-floor balcony.
Now he's obviously not wrong. I hope that I wouldn't injure myself jumping onto grass from that height. Obviously, we can agree that it's better than suffocating or burning to death in the hypothetical fire. I wonder if it would give me peace of mind to keep an emergency folding ladder around. I probably would consider it, if I were on the 3rd floor instead. That's quite a height from there.
I hope that anyone who may rely on emergency ladders does practice/drill with them occasionally. I would hate to have emergency equipment that malfunctions, or that I have no idea how to use it properly, because you don't want to find that out in the middle of a life-threatening emergency.
So my apartment has the front door, and front window. And I was attending a fire fighters' presentation about "close before you doze" where they advocate closing interior doors to stop the spread of fires. And this seems like a great idea. I quizzed the firefighter about my best recourse to emergency exit or refuge if the fire is blocking my front door exit. He said that it's probably best to simply jump from my 2nd-floor balcony.
Now he's obviously not wrong. I hope that I wouldn't injure myself jumping onto grass from that height. Obviously, we can agree that it's better than suffocating or burning to death in the hypothetical fire. I wonder if it would give me peace of mind to keep an emergency folding ladder around. I probably would consider it, if I were on the 3rd floor instead. That's quite a height from there.
I hope that anyone who may rely on emergency ladders does practice/drill with them occasionally. I would hate to have emergency equipment that malfunctions, or that I have no idea how to use it properly, because you don't want to find that out in the middle of a life-threatening emergency.