Fire Fire Fire!

The weight of death can be the most demoralizing situation an individual, a family, a community, a school, a workplace, etc., can go through. Imagine a family of four; a young mother with three children under 10 years of age encountering a fire inside their 2d story apartment building. Mom awakens to the smoke detectors repeatedly going off. She gets up immediately and gathers her children into one room. She realizes there is no way to get out of the front door of the apartment. 911 is called and are fast enroute. However, the fire is quickly spreading and Mom has to make critical, life-saving decisions. 

Mom springs into action by opening the window of the bedroom. At this point, the only opportunity to save her children, regardless of her life is to drop them out of the window. Fear and panic set in because there is no plan in place to combat the fire and get herself and her children to safety. The fire is barrelling close and closer to the room. Suddenly, police arrive on scene but time is quickly running out and the fire department is still making their way to the scene. Mom tells the police the fire is coming into the room and that she must get her children to safety, so please, "Do me a favor and catch them as I lower them out of the window and then release them for you to catch." Of course, the children are in an absolute panic. Mom lowers Kid 1 out first and then lets him go and police safely catch him. She does the same for Kids 2 and 3 and gets them to safety as well. 

The fire is now barrelling inside the room with only Mom left to save. The police tell her to tie sheets together, tie them to the bed post and then lower herself out of the window. Mom is freaking out but time has run out and she takes immediate action. While lowering herself out of the window, the sheets rip but luckily she is caught by a group of First Responders.

So listen, take the time to look at your place of residence and ask yourself if you have items right now that can combat a house fire. If the answer is no, take the time to invest in fire extinguishers, fire protection blankets, etc. Go online and research the cost of these items and also get with your local fire department and ask them to assist you in setting up a Fire Safety Prevention Plan for your respective places of residence. At the end of the day, lives continue to be lost because we are without an effective plan that can save lives, so let's stop procrastinating and get it done!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey, hey, what's up out there again, everybody? I'm your host, Greg Mac of the You Better Plan On It Podcast. You can catch me every Tuesday at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Catch me live at that same time as well by going to YouTube. Or you can catch me on one of your favorite apps by way of audio. Go to www.youbetterplan on it podcast.budsprout.com. And again, I'd like to thank Bud Sprout for all that you do in helping me get my podcast career up and running. So with that said, let's go on and go ahead on and talk about today's subject, which we're gonna call this fire, fire, fire. And the reason why I say this, I had a couple of episodes uh early on when I got into podcasting, and I told a couple of stories uh regarding fires in the home, in the apartments at your residence, and you're not having a plan in place. So again, you know, my my podcast is all about you better plan on it because you need to have an effective daily plan to mitigate any negative circumstances that you may come across. You know, you want to be safe each and every day. So I'm gonna continue to preach it, preach it, preach it until we get it. And if we never get it, I'm gonna keep on preaching it until we try to get it. So with that said, you know, um, one of the things that I checked out, I'm gonna tell you a little story. It was something very, very scary. There's a family of four, a mother and three children. Second floor of a nice apartment building, you know, and in the middle of the night, all of a sudden, a fire breaks out. I believe it started somewhere in the kitchen. And you know, whenever you're sleeping soundly and just in a good fashionable sleep, dreaming or whatever, you don't think about things other than you're just sleeping. And then all of a sudden you hear your smoke detectors go off. And then you wake up, you woozy. You know, your kids are really young. Uh, I believe maybe somewhere between the ages of maybe three and six or seven, the three children. Mother gets up, and then she realizes the fire has gotten to a point where there is no way out that front door for her or her children. She goes into a kid's room and she rounds up her kids, and what does she have to do? She realizes, okay, that fire is starting to spread more and more and more, and we can't get out that front door, any windows in the front part of the home at all. The only way out is through a bedroom window. Now, think about this. You're on the second floor, and this is a pretty sizable apartment building, and you look down out of that window, and you realize that is the only way that you can get your children out. You had no concerns at this point for your life, you only concerned about the lives of your children. So the thought process of this particular mom is I gotta take care of getting my children out as soon as soon as possible, by any means necessary. And the only way out is through this bedroom window. Now, when you look down and you see pavement and grass, her thought process is I'm going to have to toss my children out the window. And you know, she's screaming and trying to alert people, I'm sure. And you know, someone eventually calls the police and the first responders, you know, who are heading to the scene. But in the meantime, she's got to make some decisions. So, what is her decision? Is you know, her children are young, very young. And of course, they're gonna freak out about what they're supposed to do. So when the police do show up, get to the scene first, she realizes there is no way out of that uh her apartment. So she tells them, please catch my babies. Please, I'm not worried about me, catch my babies. And what does she do? One by one, the police get down to the gather, I think it's like three or four officers, and as she lowers them out the one of first, and then just releases them, you know that she's terrified. You know that the kids are terrified because they're screaming and they don't know what to do, and and there's no plan for this. Fire, fire, fire is what it is. And that fire is starting to push closer and closer to that room. So she lets go of kid number one, and thank God that the officers are able to catch that child, and then she does the same thing with the second and third child. Okay, and that works out now. Here's the problem: how does she get herself out of the building? Well, a suggestion is made to her, ma'am. If you have any sheet, take your sheets and everything, tie them together as quickly as possible to the best of your ability, and then tie them to the bedpost or tie them to something that you can anchor and that won't tear right away and get yourself down because that is the only way out of here. And she knows that is her only chance, so she quickly does what they tell her and she ties the sheets together and she starts to lower herself down and whatnot, and then obviously the sheet tears, but they catch her and they all fall, but no one is hurt or harmed other than just a little bit of smoke inhalation. So I'm telling you out there today, homeowners, apartment owners, people in the apartment, moms, dads, siblings, whatever, whoever you are, think about this. We constantly see house fires break out and the loss of life. I talked about the weight of death. Can you imagine had that mother and all three of her young children been lost to that house fire? Can you imagine the family, the devastation in the community, around the neighborhood, at the jobs, at schools, that the mom and her three kids were lost to a fire and could not get out. There was no plan on how to get out. There's no map of how to negotiate what you're doing. And I'm gonna continue to preach this. We have got to get it together, especially for those of you who live in buildings that are more than just a single story. When you start talking two and three, four stories high, these apartment buildings, it is deadly. I mean, the idea of someone jumping to their death to keep from being burned alive, it's crazy. But people do what they think they have to do to survive. So I want to tell you, take a look around your property. Even if you're not the owner, if it's an apartment, condo townhouse, your home, whatever, look around your apartment. If a fire started right now with you and your family inside, how would you negotiate getting them out? Is there a plan in place? Is there an effective plan in place? Something that you do, something that you can teach to your family because you are responsible. The weight of death is no joke. I mean, you know, I went through it with my dear friend, Master Gunnar Billy Cotton, and the loss of his life. Just the weight of his death, it just tore me up. And still working on me. But imagine, you can do something about it when it comes to a fire in your residential area. Take the opportunity, look around your home. Is there anything in there that you have in place that can help you put that fire out? Anything at all. Do you have a fire extinguisher or two inside your home? Now I know people own budgets. That is just the nature of life. When you don't live, you're not rich or anything like that. I'm neither am I. But I tell you what, you know, having just a fire extinguisher or two in a couple of different places in your home can make the difference. Strategically, look at it. Where can I put these? Or something should happen that we can get to it quickly and at least try to get the fire out to get out that front door and not get trapped and have to jump out of a window or toss your kids out of a window, or you go flying out of a window and someone gets killed or badly injured. Let's avoid all that. They have these fire protection blankets. Go online and look for it. Go down to that local fire department. Everyone knows a firefighter, police officers, first responders that know how to operate these things. Get in touch with them. Hey, can I talk to you about something? Go to that fire station. Don't be afraid to go down there. Go on down there and talk to them. Not everybody's on duty at the same time. Hey, I have this type of house. It's built this way. I live in this apartment, it's built this way. What would you recommend me to have in place in case a house fire breaks out? They will gladly tell you. I guarantee you, if you are serious enough about it, they'll even come to your residential place and help you out. But we have got to do more. I'm so sick and tired. It hurts me when I look at national TV and or look at the global channels and you see this deadly fire in a residential area or building or something, and you lose all these people, or you lose a family, or you lose an individual, and nothing was able to be done about it because there's no righteous plan in place. We gotta get it, man. Come on, wake up, smell the coffee. I'm not rich, and maybe neither are you, but hey, you go buy things when you want to have things. And like again, I know when you're on a budget, hey, you got to be careful with how you spend. But is losing a life worth you getting so uptight and intentional about your budget that, well, I can't get that, I can't afford that. Set some money aside, ask someone. I'm not telling you to go broke trying to do these things, but a couple of fire extinguishers or a fire protection blanket. A lot of these things may cost money, but sometimes if you go look online, you can find bargains. And again, talk to the fire department, police department. Find these bargain things that you can get, put them in your household so that if you do encounter a house fire, residential fire, apartment fire, whatever, you have the means of getting yourself out of that building. Think about it. She used sheets to get herself out that window and down, and could have very well not tied them well enough. As soon as she let herself out the window, have fallen to her death, a fall into a broken back, broken neck. Anything could have happened. Her kids, imagine that they woke up much later than they did because she got them up, and then they had to really get out in a hurry, and she makes a decision. There's no time to waste to just toss them out the window, regardless of her life. The question is, what happens if she tosses them out the window? And there is no one to catch them. But she lowers them down as much as she can and then says, I'm gonna have to let you go. The injuries, the damage, the possible death, man. It's real. So come on, people. Think about life. Fire, fire, fire, again and again and again. It continues to happen. So we gotta do what we gotta do to make sure our families are protected. So let's get it done. Go online, go to the fire department, do whatever you have to do to mitigate the fire to the best of your ability. There's so much you can do, whether you believe it or not. But look, man, I love everybody. No matter who you are, your skin color, your race, your ethnicity, your background, your culture. I don't care who you are, I don't care what country you're from. It's about living to live again. So when something does happen, you're prepared. Or at least prepared to the best that you can be. But think about it. You're in your home and a fire breaks out, and you have to figure out what to do. And man, imagine if you have a couple of fire stings. Imagine if you have a fire blanket. Imagine these things, and you're able to get out that front door. Imagine if you have a device or a ladder that you can put out that window and start to climb down, or an actual rope, fire retardant type of rope. You can tie your kids onto and lower them down as quickly as possible if you have no other means necessary and not have to throw them out the window and risk a life-altering situation. So come on, people. Come on, America, come on, everybody around the world. Let's do better. You hear about it day in and day out. These different deaths take place, and it's not something that should have to happen. So we gotta do it. Especially for those of you who live in these huge homes. You should have a fire suppression system, but a lot of times you get the home built, and maybe that's not a thought or a clear thought, or you have one and you never have it functional because you don't believe you need it. You do. Come on, man. I just want all of us to get on board and to start thinking about one another. And how do we prevent ourselves from the weight of death? Because when it happens to an entire family, an individual or a group of people, it is just life-shattering, life-altering. It is just something that's just, oh man, it hurts. It hurts badly. So with that said, I'm gonna close by saying thank you for your time. Be safe, be smart. Again, you can catch me every Tuesday at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. You can also catch me on YouTube at that same time or go to one of your favorite sites and go to www.ubetterplanunderpodcast.budsprout.com. Follow me, please. Check me out more and more and more, and I'd appreciate it. And always remember a plan that succeeds is a plan that can fulfill one of the needs. Thank you. God bless you. We'll talk again soon. Uh simplify.