Before you go to sleep tonight, take one simple fire-safety step: close your bedroom door.
A closed door cannot prevent every injury or replace working smoke alarms and an escape plan. It can, however, create an important barrier between a bedroom and a fire elsewhere in the home.
What Difference Can a Door Make?
Research from the Fire Safety Research Institute's Close Before You Doze program shows that a closed door can slow the movement of smoke, heat and flames. In full-scale fire experiments, bedrooms with closed doors remained dramatically cooler and had much lower carbon monoxide concentrations than rooms with open doors.
That separation can help preserve more survivable conditions while occupants react to an alarm and firefighters respond.
Modern Home Fires Can Develop Quickly
Modern furnishings and open floor plans can allow fire conditions to become dangerous rapidly. Smoke can spread well beyond the room where a fire starts, and toxic gases can overcome a person before flames reach the bedroom.
Closing the door before going to sleep puts a barrier in place before an emergency begins. You do not have to find the door or remember to close it after waking to an alarm.
Closed Doors Work With Smoke Alarms
A closed door is only one part of a complete home fire-safety plan. Every home should have working smoke alarms inside each bedroom, outside each separate sleeping area and on every level.
Test alarms monthly and make sure everyone can hear and recognize the sound. Interconnected alarms are especially valuable because an alarm near the fire can warn people behind closed bedroom doors elsewhere in the home.
See our smoke alarm safety guide for placement, testing and replacement information.
What If the Alarm Sounds?
Take every alarm seriously. Get low if there is smoke and use your planned way out. Close doors behind you as you leave when doing so does not delay your escape.
Before opening a bedroom door, look and listen for signs of fire and check whether the door or doorknob is hot. If the door is hot or smoke is entering around it, leave it closed and use your second way out if that route is safe.
If you cannot escape:
- Keep the door closed.
- Call 911 and clearly state your location in the home.
- Use a light-colored cloth or flashlight at a window to signal firefighters.
- Do not hide in a closet or under a bed.
Help Children Understand the Plan
Children may be frightened or confused when an alarm sounds. Teach them that a closed bedroom door is there to help slow the fire, but they still need to follow the family escape plan.
Practice how they will leave, where they will meet outside and what they should do if their primary exit is blocked. Children should know never to hide from firefighters and never to go back inside.
Make It Tonight's Habit
Close bedroom doors before everyone goes to sleep. Make sure hallways, doors and windows used for escape are clear. Confirm that working alarms protect every sleeping area.
Close before you doze. It is a free, immediate step that can add protection while the rest of your fire-safety plan goes to work.