What do you grab when the house is on fire?

Assume you are home alone, no other family or pets, and you awake to a fire in your home. You only have seconds to react and grab some things as you run out the door. What do you grab?

For me, the first thing I would grab are my eyeglasses, then my Iphone which lies right next to the glasses on my bedside table. Then it would be my wallet, my keys, my laptop and a pistol. Several would be equally accessible, but I think if I felt that for awhile I would be down to a single firearm, it would be my Glock 26.

What would it be for you?

Probably just my pants. They would have my wallet keys and knife already in them.

Of course it depends on how bad the situation is.

When my neighbors house was on fire he made multiple trips to bring out gas and propane cans. Unfortunately he didn't think about the commercial grade fireworks he had. That made for some interesting moments and some mad firemen.

Something often overlooked is loaded firearms. Ammo will cook off with little harm, but a shell in a chamber is probably going to send a bullet on a high speed trip.

Best to store them pointed in a safe direction.

the dog, the wife can find her way...lol

Shoes, pants and a jacket. Cold here in the winter time...Valuables locked in safe, so hopefully they will all be...uh...safe!

Depending on how big the fire is, the fire extinguisher may be first.

My assumption is that the fire is already too great to fight with a fire extinguisher and that I would have to leave immediately or risk not getting out at all. Years ago I used to think that I would grab the photo albums, but now recognize that old photos are not as critical to handling the calamity is having my car keys and at least one of the cars still functional, along with my wallet with credit cards, my phone for almost everything, and of course a firearm for self defense which we never know when that will come into play, if ever.

Well, I have smoke alarms in every room so the conflagration would be in the incipient stage. I'd just grab my ABC extinguisher and put the fire out. Then again I did this for a number of years as a profession.

Now if the fire is as bad as the OP seems to predict many will grab their pants stand up and die. Fire isn't like you see on TV. It is a living, breathing, malevolent thing that wants only to kill you.

We kinda/sorta went thru this during fire season a couple years ago.

We were told prepare for evacuation, so we did actually have some time to prepare. Even with time on our side, it was difficult to know what to pack.

And it would be unimaginably more difficult having NO NOTICE.

I am going to edit my bad advice...
If the fire is beyond incipient, just get out.

And, thank God, the wildfires did not get to us. This is/was a wake up call. It is prudent to know ahead of time just what to grab, and then only if you can grab it while running out the door.





.

Wild fire isn't a big concern locally. A possibility but not large. Earthquake is the biggest issue. Since things are really over after the quake it's more a matter of just collecting stuff and leaving if necessary.

As many of our photo albums as possible. They can not be replaced most everything else can be.

First my fire extinguisher. If that doesn't work then my wallet and car/house keys and cell phone. The rest is 'stuff' and can be replaced or repaired.

I gotta say there are a LOT of things running through one's mind in the midst of such a fire. Pinning down one specific item that you'd grab is probably not gong t be how it goes in a real scenario. Fifty years ago, I responded to a house fire in our little village(we didn't have a fire department but usually a bunch of folks showed up to save or protect whatever was left). The lady had grabbed an armload of the worst possible clothing choices from her closet-most of which no longer came close to fitting her. I heard later that the lady was embarrassed beyond description when the items she'd 'saved' were laid out.
Turned out our fire suppression efforts succeeded and most of the house contents were saved.
BTW, that was my first experience with facing the devil(fire) and walking right in. I shut off the propane line that was feeding the fire allowing a bucket line to gain the upper hand. My cotton chore coat was smoldering and someone tossed a bucket of just above freezing water down my neck. Man, that was COLD.

Dogs, wallet, phone, gun, keys for truck.

Bedside are my iPhone and 20ga Mossberg youth model with a 18" barrel, wallet and keys are in my jeans, T-shirt and a over shirt, socks and shoes are all laid out the night before and ready to go. If I can get to my laptop I would snag that and a coat on the way out the door.

Everything else is locked in my gun safe that is in a concrete room, my basement for the most part is bunker, but once the electric dies and depending on how much water use to put out said fire probubly would turn into an underground swimming pool.

OH and probubly should wake up my wife, who would be outside in her nightgown, slippers and a coat, iPhone and maybe her car keys

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING......... Me and the wife are outta there.

J.

The garden hose.

In my case we have an outside door in our bedroom. I would grab my clothes that are on a bench at he foot of the bed. No shoes or socks, just enough to cover my kester. Then out the door I go. There is absolutely nothing that is more important than life. Everything else is just stuff even if it can't be replaced.

Spectacles
Testicles
Wallet

My wife.