This Hub posting is a bit on the long side, but I think the topic warrents a thorough discussion. I hope you will enjoy it and find it helpful.

One of the most important things during travel is safety. Do you think you could safely get out of a hotel in the event of a fire? Think back to the last hotel you stayed in. Do you remember where the closest emergency exit was? Do you know if the window opened? Were there fire hoses or extinguishers in the hallway? These bits of information, which most people don't pay attention to, could save your life in the event of a hotel fire.

First off, you've gotten to the hotel after a long day of traveling. You've waited in line to check in, you're tired and you have to pee. You finally get to your room, open the door and drop your bags. What's the first thing you do? If you answered flop on the bed, open the curtains or even pee you're wrong. (Although I will concede that sometimes you have to pee in order to think straight.)

The first thing to do is go back into the hall, key in hand, and find the closest emergency exit. Where is it? What side of the hall is it on compared to your room? How many doors are between your door and the exit? Open the exit door, is there another door to go through before you get to the stairs? Visualize all of this carefully. It is very important to commit this path to memory. This will take only a minute, but in the event you need to use the emergency exit, you may be doing it blind and certainly on your hands and knees.

After you've done this, go and check out your room. Does the window open? If so, how does it open? Is there a vent fan in the bathroom? There will be a vent of some kind, but not all have fans. Is there a fire extinguisher in the room? Is there a door to an adjoining room? Knowing the layout of the room helps reduce the risk of panic just as knowing the location of the emergency exit does.

Panic is the enemy. Panic is a natural reaction to a stressful situation. When a person feels that there is danger and they don't have options, powerful physiological processes take over to try to survive. The problem is, in this situation, survival depends on calm decision making, not blindly running away.

In a hotel fire it's rarely the fire that kills. Usually, fire is contained in a relatively small area, but hot gases and toxic smoke can spread rapidly via air circulation systems. Smoke is lighter than air and will collect at the ceiling, often obscuring the exit signs which should show you the safe way out. The smoke can sear and irritate lungs and burn eyes, blinding and choking you, leading to confusion and panic. That's why it is important to know how you will get out of the building before you need to.

You wake up during the night to the smell of smoke or the sound of an alarm. You jump up grab some clothes and run into the hall but you don't know which direction the emergency exit is. You try to go back in your room, but the door has locked behind you. In a panic you go right looking for an exit sign but you can't find one through the smoke. Soon you can't keep your eyes open because the smoke is burning them. You're coughing and choking, blindly grasping at locked door after locked door. If only you had known the emergency exit was to the left.

Let's replay this scenario. This time you have prepared. You know where the exit is and you know what to do. When you wake up to the smell of smoke you immediately roll out of the bed onto the floor so you can assess the situation. You grab the room key from the table because you have made a habit of putting the key in the same place every time you're in your hotel room so you always know where it is. You quickly put on some clothes, including shoes, and crawl to the door.

You feel the door and the door knob with the back of your hand so if it's too hot you won't burn your palm or your fingers which could rob you of the use of your hands. If they aren't hot you can go into the hallway. If they are hot you'll have to stay in your room and fight the fire, but I'll talk more about that in a minute. You open the door with one hand on the knob, the other flat against the door in case you have to push it back shut quickly.

You check the hall outside your door for fire but you only see smoke so you crawl into the hall. Close the door behind you. Closed doors help limit the spread if fire and smoke. Closing all the doors you go through can actually help limit the damage and protect your stuff. This is why you brought your key along. If you have to get back into your room, you'll need the key.

Once you get in the hall you immediately move so you are against the wall which holds your exit door. This allows you to feel your way along if you can't see and helps avoid other people who might be running down the hall. There is a lot smoke in the hall. Some might think it would be faster to stand up and run but you know it's safer to crawl to keep use of your eyes and lungs. If you're traveling with anyone else you bang on their door on the way by, then you crawl down the hall past two doors, the ice machine, one more door and there's the exit. Before you open it, check it just like you did in your room.

Let's take a minute here to talk about elevators. There is no such thing as a safe elevator in a fire. Many people who could easily have walked down the stairs and out of the building have been killed because the highly complex machinery of the elevator malfunctioned. If you smell smoke in a hotel, an elevator is the last place you want to be. Avoid them at all cost.

Carefully open the door to the stairs and make sure they are safe. Go through and close the door behind you. At this point you are not going back to your room. Emergency doors are sometimes locked from the stairway side on all the floors of the hotel so that in an emergency you can get out, but you can't go from floor to floor. At the bottom and at the roof, this is the opposite. Here the doors are locked from the outside so no one can gain unauthorized access to the building. So remember, once you go through the stairway door it may lock behind you.

When you get onto the stairs, hold tightly to the rail and walk down. The last thing you want now is to fall down and get hurt. People who have panicked may run into you and knock you down so hold tight. Continue calmly down the stairs, exit the building and move a safe distance away to watch the rest of story unfold.

The stairway might be smoky, but there should be better air close to the floor, just like in the hallway. One thing to be aware of here, in stairways, as the smoke rises it begins to cool and can actually stop rising. The smoke underneath continues to rise and creates a concentrated layer of smoke. Firemen call this "stacking." You may be walking down in a clear stairway and encounter this mass of smoke. If the smoke is stacked you will turn around and start walking back up. Again, hold onto the railing. You will probably encounter people running down and you will need to hold on to keep from being knocked over. Continue on up to the roof.

When you get there, prop this door open, it's the only exception to the rule. For security reasons, roof doors will be locked. You don't want to cut off your only escape route. The roof is a safe place to wait out a hotel fire. Fireman will search the whole hotel and would much rather find you safe on the roof than unconscious or worse in the hallway.

What happens if you can't get out of your room or off your floor? You have to fight the fire where you are. If your room is filling with smoke, turn on the vent fan if you have one and open the window. Don't break out the window or throw something through it. Falling glass or objects may injure the fire fighters coming to rescue you. Fill the bathtub with water, not to get in, but to fight the fire with. Remember what happens to eggs in boiling water.

Call the front desk to report the fire and make sure someone knows where you are. Call the fire department yourself and let them know what room you are in. It may seem incredible, but some hotels won't call the fire department right away. They are concerned about disturbing the guests and may only send a staff member to check it out. You are concerned with your safety. Make sure the fire is reported because you are better safe than sorry. You can also hang a towel out of your window so those outside have a visual reference of where you are.

If smoke is coming in the room, wet the towels and bed linens in the tub and use them to stuff the cracks around the door. If the door gets hot, use the ice bucket to bail water onto it, the same with the walls. Also wet the carpet in front of the door. You can cover your mouth and nose with a wet cloth. Fold it in a triangle like a bandit mask, tie it around your head and hold the point in your mouth to keep it tight over your nose. It may seem hopeless but what you have to remember is that help is on the way. You aren't trying to put out the whole fire, just keep yourself safe until help arrives.

One last thing, when you hear that help has arrived scream and holler and let the rescuers know where you are. Listen to their instructions. Don't rip the door open because you still don't know what's on the other side. Let the fire fighters finish the job properly.

The odds of dying in a hotel fire are fairly remote. However preparation is important. Because you know what to do you will be less likely to panic. People who don't panic are more likely to survive. You can visit my website: www.weclick2travel.com for more travel tips, information on passports and visas, to make travel arrangements and much more.

Please feel free to make a comment on this Hub. I look forward to hearing from you.