The campaign for 2022 underlined the importance of having an escape plan set in place to keep everyone safe in the event of a home fire. Today’s homes burn faster than ever and you may have as little as two minutes or less to safely escape a home fire from the time the smoke alarm sounds. Your ability to get out of a home during a fire depends on early warning from smoke alarms and advance planning. In addition to testing your smoke alarms monthly, you and your family should practice a home fire escape plan twice a year, making the drill as realistic as possible. To help get your family’s fire safety plan started, visit the NFPA’s website or download the following documents:

Family’s Home Safety Action Plan

Home Fire Escape Plan

Fire Prevention Week commemorates what is known as the Great Chicago Fire that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871. This notorious blaze was one of the largest U.S. disasters of the 19th century, killing 250 people, leaving another 100000 people homeless, destroying 17400 structures, and burning more than 2000 acres.

According to popular legend, about 9:00pm on Sunday, October 8, the fire began in a barn owned by Irish immigrants, Patrick and Catherine O′Leary. The couple had already retired for the night until their neighbors began calling out about the fire in the barn. A rumor, which was put into print by Michael Ahern, the Chicago Republican journalist, has it that Mrs. O′Leary′s cow kicked over a kerosene lantern that had been placed in the barn. However, some 22 years later, Mr. Ahern admitted that he had fabricated the “cow-and-lantern” story that had put the blame on Catherine O′Leary. Sure, there was a barn and a cow, but the official report could not determine the exact cause of the Great Chicago Fire on that fateful day. Despite rumors to the contrary, this legend took and is still widely circulated to this day.

This tragedy changed the way firefighters and the public thought about the importance of fire safety and fire prevention. On October 9, 1911, the 40th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire, the Fire Marshals Association of North America (known today as the International Fire Marshals Association), sponsored the nation′s first Fire Prevention Day with the intent to raise awareness and to educate the public on fire safety. Nine years later, the day became an official national designation when President Woodrow Wilson issued the National Fire Prevention Day proclamation in 1920. To further commemorate this notorious event, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week October 4-10, 1925 as a national observance to be honored every year on the Sunday through Saturday period in which October 9 falls.