Parents are being urged to ask themselves do your kids know what to do in a fire? as Myleene Klass and son Apollo re-enact a lifesaving family fire escape plan and you'll want to make one too.
When looking for things to do with the kids, teaching them basic safety tips is often overlooked by families. But amid the rising cost of living, some families. might find themselves using candles instead of putting the heating on. Or perhaps something they've purchased a cheap electrical item online for Christmas that might not have the same safety standards as its more expensive counterpart.
As a result, any home can be at risk of a fire. Whether it's from putting Christmas lights on a real Christmas tree that is too dry to overloading a plug socket to leaving a pan unattended for mere seconds while trying to hide the top Christmas toys you've recently bought from the kids.
And it's not just over the festive period that a house fire can break out but would your children know what to do to keep safe?
There were 334 fire-related fatalities in Great Britain during 2021/22 - 23 more deaths than in the previous reporting year. But while the number of people killed in fires has decreased since the early 2000s when there were constantly more than 500 deaths each year, according to Statista.com in 2011/12 the number of fatalities related to fire fell below 400 for the first time and remained below 400 since that point. But there are still lives being lost.
Myleene Klass, singer and mum of three to daughters Ava, 16, Hero, 12, and son Apollo, four, has teamed up with Kidde Europe in support of the Cause for Alarm campaign, and she's asking her Instagram followers, 'When did you last run a fire drill in your house?'
Myleene goes on to explain how when she was younger, her ex-Navy dad would 'run fire drills or show me where the fire exits were, wherever we went."
She said, "I never valued this until I became a mum myself and got more involved and informed on fire safety. Think about it. Our children run fire drills weekly at school. We run them all the time at work, in offices, we’re told what to do ‘in the event of a fire’ on planes, at events, but the place we spend most of our time, our homes? "The answer for most people is NEVER! Having a smoke alarm is essential but if you were to ask your children for say four different routes out of their home, could they do it? "
Myleene asks parents to consider a variety of real-life scenarios when practising an escape plan.
She continued, "What about in the dark, smoke rising, having been suddenly woken up? Bearing in mind that most fires start at night, have you discussed how your children would find you or a safe route out if they couldn’t see a thing in the thick black smoke or what they’d do if the toxic chemicals filling the house stopped them from getting their next breath?"
But she also warned that "It's not the fire that gets you, it's the smoke' - a phrase often used by firefighters and the emergency services and it's changed her thinking.
But remember that while you are teaching your child how to escape a fire safely, Myleene says to bear in mind that "young children understandably get frightened and hide rather than get help. Firefighters heartbreakingly admit the majority of children found after a fire were hiding under their beds or in cupboards, in fact, 50% of children that die from fire deaths are under five."
Myleene's youngest child, son Apollo, is under five and while she takes it very seriously she doesn't want to scare him, so she's devised a game that will help him learn about fire safety.
"Listen to the song they’ve written and teach it to your children. It really works and will live in your head!" she added.
Goodto Family editor Stephanie Lowe is already teaching her five-year-old son Ted their own fire escape plan, “I watched the Myleene Klass video and it completely terrified and spurred me into action. Ted and I roleplayed it with Bluey and the Paw Patrol pups as they evacuated the Paw Patrol Tower. This weekend we're doing the hand-on-door check and the blindfold crawl.”
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