This video is broken into chapters or sections so that you can skip to sections you are interested in and easily rewatch different parts of the video.
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Background
01:55 Who we are
02:23 What we do
04:19 Fires in the home
06:21 Home fire safety
06:47 Home fire escape plan
12:00 Smoke alarms
14:00 Smoke alarm maintenance
15:27 Deaf/HoH smoke alarms
17:44 Fire blankets and extinguishers
18:55 Important!
20:14 Additional safety measures
23:33 Fire safety in the home
25:36 Deaf/HoH special considerations
28:30 Calling emergency services
31:43 Summary
35:19 If you are not sure – Call emergency!
3:06 Brigade Kids
Senior Firefighter Simon de Silva has been with Fire and Rescue NSW for sixteen years. He has been involved with numerous emergency deployments across the state and was a member of the FRNSW COVID Incident Management Team during the height of the pandemic. Simon is extremely passionate about creating the framework for operational firefighters to provide home fire safety programs to people of diverse needs and has worked with a number of organisations such as Guide Dogs NSW and Collaborating 4 Inclusion to promote and increase fire safety awareness.
Q: How do I know if my smoke alarm is a 10-year alarm?
A: There will be a date stamp on the alarm. If there is no date stamp on the alarm, treat it as an old alarm and replace it.
Q: What should I teach my child to say to emergency services? He can’t read enough for the NRS but probably won’t catch anything much from a 000 call operator. We practise giving our address and location.
A: That really does depend on the age of the child and their level of speech and their level of understanding. So my son at the age of 4 understood very quickly what it was to dial 000 and to report a fire but that really is dependent on the age of the child and makes it a little bit difficult to provide specific advice. Really important as well:
add key phone numbers to yours and your child’s mobile phone, such as emergency services, the NRS SMS phone number, neighbour’s phone numbers, grandparents’ phone numbers. The Emergency+ app or the NRS app could be a solution.
Q: When do you recommend families start teaching their kids about fire and their fire escape plan?
A: It is never too early to teach them the really basic things like get down low and go, go, go. This is basically to get down low to stay underneath the smoke because smoke rises, and the fresh air will be pushed down towards the ground. So get down low, stay underneath the smoke, and go, go, go, which means – go to the letterbox.
More information: Get Down Low & Go, Go, Go!
Resources designed for children. Videos include:
Please note: These videos are not captioned.
Teacher resources for children with diverse learning needs.
The Emergency+ app is a free app developed by Australia’s emergency services and their Government and industry partners.
The app uses GPS functionality built into smart phones to help a Triple Zero (000) caller provide critical location details required to mobilise emergency services.
Co-designed and tested with people with disability, Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness (P-CEP) enables people to self-assess their preparedness, capabilities and support needs and develop a personal emergency plan for how they will: (a) manage their support needs in emergencies; and (b) act together with their support network before, during, and after a disaster.
Disclaimer: The information contained on this website is not intended as a substitute for independent professional advice.
