pragakhan

I as a firefighter don't look forward to being on the other end of a hotel fire, especially with all the light construction we are seeing but here is how I roll.

Sleep semi-clothed, the days pants laying somewhere ready with wallet, hotel/car key and phone (charging) in the pockets. Shoes un-tied by the door. Fire alarm, put on the pants, shoes and grab a towel, wet it with cold water.

So the cold towel will either help prevent burning of your lungs and throat from the toxic gasses you breath in, or it'll help make matters worse by turning into steam - so discretion is needed when using the towel

Real quick, sprinklers don't usually put out fires, just slow its spread. Light construction buildings you got about six minutes to get out. Stairs are the worse place to be, although some have windows now. Just look at them, wood, carpet or steel?

Floors in a L/C building don't just collapses where the fire is, the whole floor collapses. It's like the old Christmas lights, one burns out, they all go out. Which is why the wood and carpet stairs are a terrible place to be in the first place!

Remember they only have to provide multiple means of egress, they don't necessarily have to guarantee it's sustainability in a fire.

TV fires are no where close to the real thing. Look how much smoke your average camp fire, or burn pile puts out. Imagine you built that fire in a small bedroom, how long before you can't see your hand in front of you? And that is just a little camp fire or brush fire.

You got six minutes, lots of smoke. Some buildings put exit signs by the floor, if you can see them, great! ^

Six minutes, it goes by quick.

kered

I’m glad this has been bumped up again & actually I think this thread warrants “Sticky Status” ^

This is a truly excellent thread & one that I’ve read some time ago & adopted the strategy of checking the fire exit route, upon reaching our room. Including counting the doors to the exit from our room & opening the exit to see how the latch works & what the stair way is like.


Yeah I’ve been doing this for a number of years when in hotels……….

I’ll lay out my day pants, tee-shirt, underwear & shoes on a chair, right by the bed, where I can just get up & walk to within a step or two. The shoes, if of the lace up variety, I will have opened up in such a way that I can just step into them, without any problem. I also have my slippers (brought from home) right at the bedside, so that they fall right to step into as I step out of bed. More for night time bathroom visits, than anything else, but certainly handy for a speedy escape.

I always have my wallet & a torch sitting on the nightstand beside me, right within reach as I put out my hand. But now I’m thinking that I might put my wallet in the pocket of my pants. One less thing to gather up in a hurry.

The one flaw I see in my plan, is that I have my tickets, passports etc always in the room safe & I’ve been thinking for a while now, that each night, I might just take out my travel folder & have it on the night stand too, so that I can grab it in a hurry.

That said I always have an SD card in my wallet, with scans of my passport saved in PDF format, along with copies of e-tickets / itineraries relevant to the particular trip I’m on. So I guess if I did lose the hard copies of my travel documents, I do have soft backup copies available. But now thinking about it, you really can’t beat having the real thing to hand when it comes to your passport. I’m definitely going to have to re-access that aspect of my plan.

I like to think that I am well prepared for a speedy & efficient exit from a hotel, but I guess you never know until the situation arises for real !

Which of course I really hope never happens !

Genius1

Just read the first post in this thread - very interesting. A lot of this I do or would do already, but a few points have made me think 'Oh!', so I too have printed this off for reference ^

dhammer53

Bump. Please start reading with the first post.

exilencfc

Interesting read, thanks. A couple more things - personally i'm very careful to find out how the lock works on my room door, I do it to make sure my belongings are secure but it would also be useful in an emergency. Also, many hotels are not laid out the same on every floor, which may effect your exit plans

broadwayblue

Exactly what is this product?

alecheverry

^

Great post with excellent information, hopefully no one here needs to get in a situation like this. Thank you so much for everything!

BTW, go to first post and read from there if you haven't do so!

alecheverry

After reading this post I added an additional flashlight to my travel bag, can't believe how useful they are!

Now my wife keeps one in her purse, and additional one in the car, and 3-4 more around the house just for emergencies....Well, about two weeks ago we had to use them after there was a power outage due to a thunderstorm....it lasted only like 5 minutes, but we knew we had them all over the house! So glad we were prepared (It served us as a drill! ha!)

emma69

Very interesting thread. Two things that I've learned working in a high rise

1. If you are going down and encounter smoke, one approach is to exit at that floor or the one above back on to the landing and find an alternative stairwell (often opposite side / corner).

2. Count the number of stairs in the emergency stair well. Sounds odd, but the number is often standard on each floor so it means you can grab the banister and count stairs down, meaning you can keep your eyes closed in smoke, or if there is no lighting or thick smoke. Feeling your way down takes longer.

I was also told years ago in fire safety training to take a wet towel with me but to be careful as to it's use. Obviously at work I don't have towels but I do take a water bottle a) because it is a long way down! And b) smoke and debris make it hard to see and some water splashed can alleviate it momentarily.

adamak

This is worth digging up and re-read.

I also clip a small emergency light to my keychain. Tumi sold them. I had them after 911 and used it during the NYC blackout. I also make a habit of leaving my handbag, key and shoes by hotel door.

CenterWaters

I was in a my room at the Grand Hyat _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ with my lady friend on Valentine's Day. We had a wonderful room service dinner and were just about ready for... well.. you know... when the fire alarms started going off. She came from a family of brothers/uncles who were firefighters. She literally dragged me down the fire escape stairs and down 21 floors... we were the first ones to end up across the street from the hotel. (later joined by dozens of others who were in the same attire.. i.e. bathrobes and shorts only) Turned out that one of the hotel's restaurants had a kitchen fire. The kitchen was destroyed.... The guests were allowed back inside after 3 or 4 hours.

celle

I was in the fire at the Hilton Hotel, Las Vegas.

Since then, after dumping my bags in the room, the first thing I do is check the way to the emergency stairs. I count how many paces to the fire exit, then I feel along the walls, counting how many other doors I will have to pass. This is because I may not be able to see and I may be crawling, so I will need to find my way by touch.

In addition, I always have a small torch (flashlight) attached to my handbag at all times and I keep one on the bedside table at night.

I check for fire exits whenever I go to a theatre of movie, too.

PeterNem

I've never done more than glance at the map on the back of a hotel room door to check where the exit is. Good advice to actually walk to it and familiarise yourself with the route.

BearX220

I was in the Mondrian on Sunset for the Northridge earthquake in '94. Not a fire, but similar sort of chaos. Ever since, I've always counted the number of doorways from my room to the nearest fire exit, and I always travel with a little Maglite. (The Mondrian was thrown into pitch darkness by the quake -- the emergency lights and phones all failed. A little scary.)

sard

Good topic