Fire Escape Plans are critical to saving your family in the event of a fire taking hold in your home. House fires are frightening, and having to escape your house can be more terrifying than it needs to be, especially if your kids haven’t practiced the plan in advance. We recommend teaching them your house escape plan in advance, so in the event of a house fire, they know how to get out of the house instead of staying put and you can be confident in their ability to get out if the worst occurs.

NZ House Fire Escape Planning Tool

The New Zealand Fire Service has an excellent Fire Escape Planning tool that is designed to help you create and highlight the escape routes in your home in the event of a fire. You can then print your personalised Home Escape Plan out for the whole family to use. TIP: Stick it on the fridge for a week so everyone gets familiar with it!

The Waterman’s Fire Escape Plan

Here is an example of the Waterman’s house. They have two children, Georgia and Jack. They know that it’s more likely a fire will start in the kitchen or family room so their escape plan has the children heading away from that area. The Waterman’s also want to make the escape as short as possible for their children and to make sure they are already heading towards them if the children identify a fire before them.

When the Waterman family practiced their escape, they also showed Georgia and Jack how to escape from their window and onto the grass if they couldn’t escape via the hallway. There is a big walnut tree out the front of the Waterman’s house and that’s the meeting place. One big rule for everyone is that they will all meet there first before trying to find where their cat Midnight is.

How to use the House Fire Escape Planning Tool

It’s a five minute job to create using the Fire Escape Planning Tool, simply follow these four steps.

  1. Draw your house in blue.
  2. Escape plan in red.
  3. Add furniture emoji to identify each room.
  4. Add window and door emoji’s to identify escape points.

Where do New Zealand House Fires Start?

Kitchens, bedrooms and family rooms make up over half of the sources of house fires according to the New Zealand Fire Service. It is highly recommended to install photoelectric smoke alarms in your family room and each bedroom, the alarms in these areas will provide the earliest detection and enable your family to escape your home. Old style ionisation alarms use a less effective technology so ensure you installed photoelectric smoke alarms.

Let Your Children Create The Family Escape Plan

Letting your children contribute to the creation of your fire escape plan can be a fun activity for a rainy day, and helps them take ownership of this important responsibility. If you’d like your children to help create the family escape plan you can make your own using this cool Fire Escape Plan Drawing Guide that the NZ Fire Service has created. There’s all the furniture, arrows and escape doors and window emoji you’ll need to make if both fun and educational! This also helps children use reasoning skills as to why various escape routes are likely to be safer than others.

On Saturday, 16th of June 2018, Callum McNeil and his wife experienced a close call which reminded them exactly why it’s so important to have efficient smoke alarms as well as a secure escape route. Callum shares his story below:

Firstly, we had our lounge, kitchen, dining and hall redecorated recently, and thought it would be a good idea to get the rest of our smoke alarms changed to your Cavius alarms. Thank goodness we did. My wife got up early, as she was having trouble sleeping. It was cold, as it was winter. She lit a fire in our free standing fireplace, which still had an unburnt log from the night before. After a time, the log combusted, if that’s the right word to use. It gave her a fright. Due to the force, it blew smoke out the front gaps which would normally contain it, but this was not what activated the alarm. She carried on pottering around, enjoying the heat, when suddenly, the alarm activated. She said she never smelled any smoke, and this goes to show that when they say smoke is a silent killer, they weren’t telling porkies. As she hadn’t smelled the smoke, she thought the combustion caused a fire in our ceiling, which we couldn’t see. She yelled out to get us, our daughter and I, out of the house, and we got out via the back door, which is the safest route out. Joy was on the phone to 111 FENZ very quickly.

Our house is 112 years old. It would burn like paper. Very fast! The Fire crew from our town, and a backup pump from the next closest town were sent. Luckily, there was no fire in the roof cavity either. So, why did the smoke alarm go off, you ask? Well, unbeknown to us, there was a crack in the base of the firebox. Only 5cm long. However, this was enough for the alarm to alert us there was a problem. It was a VERY early warning, which gave us good time to evacuate. It did make us think how we could refine our escape route. No house should be without an escape plan, especially with alternatives, if one is blocked. Practice once a month. Make it a safe ‘challenge’ to see who did the escape well.

We spent the extra money to get the Cavius photoelectric smoke alarms, and we are very glad we did. I ask the question, would the other alarms have picked up the smoke like yours did? Would we have had the same amount of time to escape? We placed them in the areas recommended by, Cavius. This reminds me of a situation whereby a person I knew, removed the battery from a smoke alarm, as it kept going off. It’s a pretty simple solution really.. Replace it! For a matter of a few dollars, or if money is really tight, visit your local fire station, which should have free ones. Life is too precious.

We all want to thank you for such an incredible product which picked up a problem way before we could. Definitely worth the money!! Thank you again.

There are two main types of smoke alarms, commonly found in New Zealand homes; Photoelectric and Ionisation. However, for a number of years now photoelectric smoke alarms are the type that has been recommended by Fire and Emergency New Zealand. But what is the difference between Photoelectric and Ionisation, and why are photoelectric alarms so highly recommended?

A recent test of both Photoelectric and Ionisation smoke alarms by Consumer NZ, found that Ionisation smoke alarms performed so poorly that it requested retailers to stop selling this type of smoke alarm. Ionisation smoke alarms are now no longer stocked in any of the major DIY stores in NZ.

Photoelectric Smoke Alarms
This type of smoke alarm works by aiming an optical light into a sensing chamber, and when smoke or other by-products of combustion fill this chamber, the light beam is broken and sets off the alarm.

Photoelectric smoke alarms have been proven to be more effective at detecting slow burning, smouldering fires – the most common type of fire in a home environment. They are also less likely to trigger a false alarm from cooking.

Photoelectric smoke alarms are now the internationally recommended solution for household use.

Cavius | 10-Year Photoelectric Smoke Alarm

Ionisation Smoke Alarms
This type of alarm works by using a small amount of radioactive material between two electrically charged plates. This material ionises the air, creating a current between the two plates, so when smoke, or other by-products of combustion enter the chamber, the current is disrupted causing the alarm to sound.

Ionisation smoke alarms are prone to false alarms, which results in people removing the batteries and thereby losing all protection. This type of alarm is also dramatically slower to respond to smouldering fires (the most common type of fire in a home environment) which can fill a home with deadly smoke long before it bursts into flames, and by responding slower it gives much less warning to occupants of the home and decreases the chances of survival. Ionisation alarms are also typically a-lot larger than photoelectric alarms.

Ionisation Smoke Alarm

So, what alarm is in my home?
If you aren’t sure what type of smoke alarm you currently have in your home, usually Ionisation alarms will have a yellow radioactive sticker (as per the image below) somewhere on the alarm body, it is commonly found underneath the alarm, so you might need to remove it to check.

This is the Ionisation symbol often found on an Ionisation smoke alarm

Photoelectric smoke alarms are highly recommended by the New Zealand Fire Service, due to their effectiveness at detecting the range of fires that occur in a home.

All CAVIUS smoke alarms are photoelectric and come in an array of options, whether you are after an alarm with a 10 year long-life battery, an alarm that connects to the others in your home, or a hardwired mains powered smoke alarm, we have one to suit your needs! The CAVIUS smoke alarms are also aesthetically pleasing and not to mention small and stylish.

Your best protection in a house fire is to have a working smoke alarm, and the faster you can be alerted, the more time you have to get yourself and your family to safety. Make sure you are giving your family the best protection and have photoelectric smoke alarms installed in your home!