​​By Amanda Swenson 
Chief Deputy State Fire Marshal

Parents might be counting down the days to sending their kids back to school. Kids, on the other hand, are probably savoring every minute of summer. As we look to the school year, it might be time to give the residents of your communities some homework. Now is the perfect time to practice that home escape plan.

Recently, WCCO did a story on conducting home escape planning. In talking with the reporter, we discussed the school inspection program. He found it interesting that we require schools to conduct drills but often, families don't practice them at home. Since the school inspection program was started in 1990, we have seen a dramatic decrease in fires at schools. While I would love to give all the credit to our school inspection team (they certainly play a huge role in increasing fire safety in schools) we have also seen increases in sprinklers, alarm technology and awareness of fire safety in schools. While many of these technologies are available to homes, they are not implemented to the same degree and certainly most people do not have inspectors checking for code compliance in residential structures.

The weight of fire safety in our homes is on the shoulders of our residents but all of us in public safety play a role as well. Education of fire safety hazards is a continual process. Find those opportunities to provide training, tools and resources. So go to your social media, give that homework assignment to your community, ask residents to make that escape plan if they haven't and practice it tonight.​