Merritt Fire Rescue focusing on ‘close before you doze’ in the month of January

MERRITT -With a new month, comes a new teaching point for the Merritt Fire Rescue Department.

“One of the things that we are discussing this month is the idea of ‘close before you doze’,” said Gareth Tilt, Merritt Firefighter and Public Education Coordinator.

When it comes to ‘close before you doze’, it has to do with limiting a flame if one were to break out in the home.

“The whole concept stems from the fact that when you go to sleep at night, making sure that those doors are closed to stunt the flow path of fire. What a flow path is fresh oxygen that can come in and move through your home through doors, windows, and just circulating through the house. That really feeds the fire and we want to make sure, by closing those doors, we can shut that off and that will prevent the movement of fire and toxic gases through the home.”

Officials said it’s all homes that have to practice this method, not just older homes as sometimes the newer homes actually have more risk.

“Those older homes can be really nice because a lot of those times they have more doors and more separated rooms. In fact more synthetic products, newer furniture, and open concepts actually increase the amount of air and oxygen and can be a bit of a challenge for this.”

Tilt said statistically, back 40 years ago there was about 17 minutes in the case of a fire for an evacuation of the home, but due to those newer products like mentioned, now it is estimated to be roughly three minutes for an evacuation. By making sure the doors are closed, he said there will more increasingly more time to escape.

“You might not have the time to move through and get to every room that you need to get to, so by having those doors already in place and closed, you can prevent the fire from moving in that direction in the first place and increase the time and the survivability of that space.”

It’s not just doors that should remain closed, it’s anything that has an opening to allow air to flow through.

“Windows as well, any opening to the outside is going to be a space that can bring air and oxygen in. The reality is it’s about how much is getting to the fire at the origin site of that fire itself, so by closing the door, they have done studies that show it has decreased the temperature from inside a room with a closed door to outside where the fire might be can be about a 500 degree Celsius difference, which can make all the difference in the end.”

Just like with stop, drop, and roll, the concept of closing doors is an important habit to get into in the case of an emergency.

“Even if there is an emergency in your house and your alarms are going off to make sure that you close the doors on your way out, if you can, because it can just stop the spread of fire and potentially starve that fire of oxygen and prevent it from growing and potentially put it out. Obviously don’t go through closing all the doors in your home in the case of an emergency, your safety is first and foremost but if you can close the door on the way out, it’s encouraged to do so.”

In the instance a fire does break out and you need to evacuate the home and close the doors, the first step is being alerted the emergency is taking place.

Just like in every talk we do, make sure your smoke alarms have been checked they are tested because they are going to be the part that will give you the heads up to get out of the home and as you head out to that meeting place outside just make sure you are trying to close the door behind you. Make sure that air flow is not moving into the home because that is going to bring the fire back through the home.”

The Merritt Fire Rescue Department is more than willing to help teach students and the community about this ‘close before you doze’ concept and other safety questions they may have.

“For all the schools in the local community, the Merritt Fire Rescue Department is happy to come and do a ‘close before you doze’ fire science and fire behavior presentation to your classrooms. We also have career education and hall tours all throughout the year so we would be more than happy to schedule something and make it fit for your classrooms needs.”

In order to get schedule a learning session, head to the Public Education section of the Merritt Fire Rescue website.