Our 3-Step Escape Plan

  • First Escape Route
  • Second Escape Route
  • Meeting Place
Notes

Use this space to note any additional information about your escape plan, i.e. who will assist

Your checklist
  • Get low

    Smoke is poisonous and more deadly than flames.

    If you breathe smoke for more than a few breaths it can kill you.

  • Be fast

    A house fire can kill you in less than three minutes.

    Don't spend time trying to save possessions.

  • Close doors

    A closed door buys you time.

    It slows down the spread of fire, giving you more time to get to safety.

  • Get out - stay out!

    People have died by going back into a fire.

    Don't leave the meeting place to go back inside for any reason.

Get out! Stay Out!

The early childhood education school fire-safety programme, Get Out!, Stay Out!, is for pre-school children aged from three to five years old.

About Get Out! Stay Out!

The focus of Get Out! Stay Out! is surviving fire in the home setting. Fire moves fast – it spreads quickly giving you and your family less than three minutes to get out of the house safely.

Fire and Emergency has developed a fire safety programme Get Out! Stay Out! for young children and their families/whānau. Together with early childhood centres, educators, and carers, we aim to encourage fire-safe behaviours – most importantly, how to escape a fire safely.

We’ve kept the content and learning outcomes of Get Out! Stay Out! simple. This is to meet the range of learning abilities across this age group. Home fire safety for preschool children is the ultimate responsibility of parents and caregivers. It’s important that they know and understand the critical lifesaving actions that prevent unwanted fires from happening and prepare people to get out safely if a fire happens at home.

Get Out! Stay Out! uses principles from Te Whāriki Early Childhood Curriculum(external link). We have developed learning outcomes that support the different goals within the learning strands of Te Whāriki.

Get Out! Stay Out! also includes some take-home material to encourage parents and caregivers to get involved in home fire safety and take and responsibility for it. It emphasises the importance of children learning in their own homes as well as through early childhood providers.

The Get Out! Stay Out! learning outcomes

The Get out! Stay Out! programme will help children learn the following concepts:

  • Fire is hot and fast
  • What smoke alarms and extinguishers are, and what they sound like
  • The importance of shouting ‘Fire, fire, fire!’ when there is a fire to raise the alarm to others in the house
  • In a fire, children should get out and stay out
  • In a fire, children should meet family/whānau at a safe meeting place
  • The role of the firefighter
  • Matches and lighters safety: children should always give them to an adult. We encourage parents/caregivers to reinforce this at home.

The facts

Once a fire has started in a room, you will have less than three minutes to get out. Having an escape plan is even more important in households where there are dependants, such as young children. Create your own 3-Step Escape plan.

One in four house fires starts in the kitchen, and unattended cooking is the leading cause of house fires in New Zealand. Remember to keep looking while you’re cooking.

On average, one third of the residential fires we attend do not have working smoke alarms. You are four times more likely to survive a house fire if you have working smoke alarms.

If you would like to learn more about home fire safety, book a free Home Fire Safety Visit.

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