In a house fire, are you safer sleeping with your bedroom doors open or closed? See the dramatic, life-saving difference a door can make. #CloseBeforeYouDoze For more information and resources, visit closeyourdoor.org.
As a retired Firefighter in Service for thirty years, I know that closing doors will save lives. I also know that "GET OUT", "ONCE OUT, STAY OUT". and "meet at a designated place and STAY THERE" Does in fact save lives.
Tbh I only keep it closed because I have horrible nighttime anxiety. It's weird because even tho I'm home, I still don't feel safe. But after this creepy PSA about something similar to this, I never keep my door open lol
Having had a firefighter for a grandfather this was drilled into my skull by the time I was in Kindergarten along with all the other fire safety rules.
Signed up to be in this odd Chevy commercial only to be shown my own house getting set on fire for a demonstration SMH. Where's my free truck I was promised?!
a bit unrelated, but in subnautica, when a fir breaks out in the cyclops, you can turn on fire suppression which closes all the doors. i thought this was a nice little detail showing how much work the devs put into it
My kids just asked me why I make them sleep with the doors closed at night. I told them it's to keep them safe in the event of a fire. They didn't believe me, so I played them this video. They do now. Thank you. For those who leave their doors open at night because "I'm too hot!" Think you're too hot at night now? Just think how hot, and fast, those synthetic fibers burn. With less than 3 minutes of escape time from when the smoke alarm goes off, you may never have the chance to get to safety.
It depends. It's not really because of the hot feeling but lack of oxygen. If you have windows and doors open, there is more circulation of air meaning more oxygen for your brain and better sleep. That would be the only argument to having doors shut. But in the case of a fire having doors shut is definitely better. I personally still like to have my door and windows open; I have an alarm system which would help me wake up in the case of a fire.
I'm surprised so many people don't know this, I was also surprised when I asked my children not because of their response but rather their confidence in their answer. Smoke inhalation alone will overcome a sleeping individual, any open room offers oxygen! Idk, I remember so vividly instructed to put towels around the door frame. God Bless to anyone ever in a fire!
I think it confuses people because they're afraid to get trapped in a fire, because we're also taught to not open a door in a fire or it could burst into the room you're in...if you're in a room where the only escape is that open door or a window several stories up I can see why people would thing open door would allow you to escape faster in the event of a fire.
@@water9892 its more of a psychological thing than reasonable, having a closed box for a room with reassurance of the door being shut so a person can't enter without making a sort of alerting noise. Of fucking course it won't stop someone who wants to get in, but its an instinctual reassurance mechanism. Humans have a warped idea that anything that they can't see, can't hurt them. This is very subconscious and reasonably we know what wants to touch us will touch us no matter what.
My FD never had observers, but we burned just like that for training. I'd been taught forever to close my door all the time, but seeing that difference was always amazing.
At the end, they mention the need for smoke detectors in every room. Many apartments and condos are built with them outside the rooms, so if a fire started in your bedroom while you were sleeping... well, you get the idea. Put one in your bedroom, too!
Any barrier is better than none - even if that barrier will eventually burn. Before it does burn, it can help save you by keeping out not only the fire itself, but the heat and perhaps even more important, the smoke.
This is also good advice when everyone leaves the house for school or work to close all interior doors. If a fire starts in one room, it will slow down the progression of the fire into other rooms and confine it to one room for long enough for firefighters to arrive and put out fire reducing the total damage to the dwelling. Obviously that doesn’t mean that a house won’t burn down to the ground. If the fire is not noticed at all until it has started getting through doors of several rooms and the firefighters are a long way off. Or if you live where there are no fire hydrants and a water supply has to be established to fight the fire. This consists of drafting water from the nearest body of water into tankers that go to the fire scene and fill huge portable containers with their water and go back for more. The extra time those closed doors allow for more time to get the “wet stuff on the red stuff.”
This is very informative and helpful in showing one part of Fire and safety. The furnace spreading fire, smoke, and carbon monoxide throughout the home is another issue that needs to be shown as a residential safety problem. A new invention called the Furnace Fan Interrupter is in the submission stage to UL for evaluation to reduce the spread of noxious fumes to help save lives and property.
That's a good point. Commercial HVAC systems have been required to be interlocked to the fire alarm system for decades, for that very reason...to disable ventilation in the event of a fire to prevent spreading smoke elsewhere and/or feeding a fire.
@@captain150 Thanks for the reply! Last year we sponsored the Colorado School of Mines Engineering students for further development on the prototype and filed for a second patent which is if the final stages of completion which is actually filed as HVAC Monitoring System name and on RU-vid. Also we are trying to get the NFPA to adopt this as a new safety requirement and save lives! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I69uzVz0v10.html
This is why most modern buildings, including my own apartment building, has Fire Doors at regular intervals throughout the halls that automatically release when the fire alarms go off. The building I live in is pretty big, and it's crazy when they do fire alarm tests hearing *every single door on every floor* slam closed simultaneously.
we just had a fire about 2 months ago and I noticed the fire in the wall and thank god for smoke alarms.... had all about 10 minutes to get the dog out and some of our stuff house is a total loss
We had a fire in our gas dryer…we weren’t home but I closed the laundry room door before we left. We came home smelled smoke and couldn’t figure it out. I looked in the dryer & it was black. I had a repair guy come take a look before we purchased a new drier. He said there definitely was a fire inside/under it but it extinguished itself because I closed that door. Had I not who knows what would have happened. I clean it regularly now & never dry clothes before bed or if we are leaving. After watching this I’m thankful both of our kids prefer to sleep with the bedroom doors closed
*Houses burn faster and hotter:* At 2:40, “What a lot of people don’t realize is that *the furnishings that in our homes today are made of synthetic materials. So they burn so much faster* than your old natural cotton filled furnishings used to be. The statistics that we’ve seen through our researches is that about 40 years ago, you had about *17 minutes* to exit your house after the smoke alarm sounded. *Now you have less than 3 minutes.”* - Steve, director of the UL Fire Fighter Research Safety Institute
According to feng shui principle, leaving your bedroom door open when you sleep allows positive chi to flow out, and opens up your space to negative energy. Sleeping with the door shut promotes feelings of safety and security, bringing you calm and peace of mind. Door closed is better confirmed.
I have to keep my door closed because of my horrible nighttime anxiety. It only intensified after watching that old fire PSA with that girl being chased by that fire shooting tank. It's by Fire Kills I think. It was a British PSA I saw on RU-vid. We only get Smoky the bear in America. Not as effective in making me almost piss my pants but will nice reminder to be careful with fire.
I always sleep with my door closed but my parents always yell at me to open it and even when I close it they go in after I’ve fallen asleep and open it for me and they also keep all the doors and windows in our home open
They should include this with the basic fire training they give to public school kids. I learned stop drop and roll, get out, and meet at a designated location, but not this.
As a firefighter my self, a fire needs 3 things to burn, #1 fuel, #2 oxygen, #3 ignition source, if you notice threw the walk threw, the room that was burnt the most was the ONLY one with the window open, now if the window was closed like in the child's room with the bear on the bed, then both rooms would have almost been equal, anotherwards, the one with open window got more oxygen than the closed room, but the window would have fed enough oxygen down the hallway to consume them both in a somewhat RAPID session.
Does closing the door change how fast all the oxygen is sucked out of the house? Most people who die in house fires are in a CO2 narcosis long before the smoke or fire reaches them. It would be nice to see that demonstration as well.
Good comparison however I noticed the window in the open door room was open and the window in the closed door was closed. This would make a big difference to fire spread.
I was wondering if anyone else had noticed this. Of course the fire will spread especially quickly into a room where there's an open door and window to feed air to the fire. I would have liked to see the comparison between door open/window open, door open/window closed and door closed (not sure how relevant the window is if the door is shut, but may also be interested to compare both options there too)
And what happens if the fire starts within the bedroom? This video needs to state that it's only safe to sleep with the door closed if there is an alarm within the room. Fires can start from electrical outlets, faulty appliances, candles and any number of causes and if the bedroom door is closed and the person is sleeping in the room the likelihood of a fatality before the smoke gets out of the room to the alarm in the hallway is high
certainly you want to close the kitchen door/s hallway etc living room, im not keen on closing bedroom doors as that initial burst of fire when you open to escape could kill you.
The whole time my dad has been wrong. He always say to keep my door open so I could atleast save my dog which it’s cage that it sleeping in is right next to my room. But I still close it.
Hollow core interior doors are supposed to last for 25 minutes with flame directly on them. Solid core interior doors are supposed to last for 45 minutes. Depending on the response time of the fire department, you should either have plenty of time to escape...or...if you needed to stay in the room, the firefighters would have plenty of time to rescue you. If there is a fire in your room...get out quickly - and CLOSE THE DOOR!
I share a room with my little sister, though convincing her should be easy. The only problem is the door has not had a doorknob for a while and I'm not sure if she will feel safe with the door closed until it is fixed. Probably eventually.
I didn't know this. But wouldn't it make sense to have the doors open to hear the sound of the smoke alarm (if it's working), grab emergency bags/documents (if you have them prepared) and get out? What about pets?
If you watch to the end, the UL guy said the message is to sleep with the door closed AND have smoke alarms INSIDE and outside each sleeping room. That's the take away from this.
@@JonnyFlash80 Yeah, that is the most important point. These videos show the dramatic side of a fire, but the idea is that you want to be outside by the time the fire or smoke gets bad. You don't want to be "safely" in your bedroom with the door closed and an intense fire on the other side of that door with your only way out being through your bedroom window. I think they emphasize doors closed so heavily because it is factually accurate but more so because it's easy for people to form the habit and do it. What's not as easy is 1) making sure you have working smoke detectors in all the right places and testing them annually, 2) teaching children who are old enough what to do in case of fire and how to escape their room if trapped, 3) potentially purchasing something like a safety ladder if bedrooms are on the 2nd or 3rd floor, 4) having working/charged cell phones in your room so you can immediately call 911 if needed and when safe....and I'm sure there are many more point.
Hrm... I sleep with the bedroom door open, but the only reason I do is because I have cats. Who, regardless of which side of the door they're on, will inevitably want to be on the other side of it. They will cry loudly. They will bang on the door - I'm not even sure how they do this, but I suspect they reach a paw under and PULL it against the door jam. Until I stopped closing the door when sleeping, they made it impossible to get any sleep. How would a cat flap door affect fire safety?
It may be my brand of smoke detector, but I had a house fire back in 2012. Deemed a total loss. Had to tear the house down. Our smoke alarms never went off. We never heard them beep until the days after when we went back to see the extent of the damage. They were a melting, beeping mess. I knew of the fire from some confusion of other people in the house with me and how scared my dogs were. It wasn’t until I saw the smoke that I got out of the house. Sleeping with the door shut, maybe. But sometimes fire starts before smoke does. It’ll depend on what starts the fire if you’ll want your doors open or shut. But there’s no way to know until it’s too late! I hope lightening doesn’t strike twice, but for me I’ll keep my doors open from experience. But it’d probably be more wise to listen to the men who study fires for a living. I can’t close it from my own trauma. But it probably is safer. Namely, just check your smoke detectors :)
The door to me and my sisters room isnt able to be closed... dear gosh I hope we don't have to jump out a window (it would save our lives but we'd hurt ourselves badly, jumping into the area were my dog is and from the second story)
now im scarwd, because of the other factor: i usually lock the room door when im inside (it keeps opening itself). Shit, ant it sometimes struggles to unlock fast...especially when you forgt where had you put keys...
Soooo, in the event of a fire if you don't have a ladder to escape of a second floor or if you have small children or if you don't have a a family fire escape plan most probably you won't make it
Ugh. I've got a cat that will go nuts if I close my bedroom door. So, I have smoke alarms everywhere. A total of 5 smoke alarms for a 2 bedroom 1,100 square foot 1-story cabin. 2 adults in the house. No smokers. But, it's a very, very old house with a mixture of old and new wiring. Smoke alarms are placed just inside and just outside our bedroom doors. A smoke alarm is in the living room and 1 in the kitchen. If it weren't for my therapy cat, I could easily go with a closed-door approach. 2 of the 5 smoke alarms also alert for carbon monoxide. Plus, a 6th alarm that is carbon monoxide only. Batteries are always checked. What more can I do?
I have 4 small kids. Two in each room. How do I get to them God for bid if there was a fire? Obviously doors need to be closed but now I'm worried about reaching my kids. I'm used to sleeping with our doors open because it allows me the ability to hear my kids and react to them quicker.😭
That is why smoke detectors should be installed in every area of the house, all interconnected. Teach your kids how to evacuate themselves so you only have to worry about getting the youngest ones out.
What if the fire starts in one of your children’s bedroom How are you gonna know if the doors close you won’t hear anything and by the time you do it might be too late that’s scary I’m sorry but I’d rather risk my life to protect my child and know what’s going on before it’s too late