Fire survival: escape quickly, stay out and call emergency services

If the fire is in your own flat, what you do in the first minute counts more than anything else. Get everyone out, close the door behind you, stay out, and call 101 or 112 once you are safe. This page puts the steps in the order you will need them and says what to do if you cannot get out. Checked 4 November 2026.

In short

• Get out first. Take the nearest clear exit. Phones, documents and valuables can wait.
• Stay low and feel the door. Smoke rises. Touch a closed door with the back of your hand. If it is hot, keep it shut and use another way out.
• Close doors behind you and take the stairs. Never the lift.
• Call 101 or 112 from outside. Give the full address, floor and flat number.
• Cannot get out? Go to a room with a window, shut the door, push cloth into the gaps, call, and signal from the window.
• Never go back in.

Escape comes before belongings

Early warning gives people time to act, but smoke and heat can make a familiar route unusable. Know the usable exits from your home or workplace, how to alert others and where to meet outside. A building’s actual layout and local fire plan determine the route; never assume that every door or stair remains safe during a fire.

When you notice fire or smoke

Raise the alarm and warn others without delaying your own escape. Leave by a safe route and stay out. Avoid a route affected by smoke or heat. In an ordinary building fire, use the appropriate stairs rather than a lift unless a specifically designed evacuation system and the responsible authority direct otherwise. If escape is blocked, move away from smoke, close a door between you and the fire if safe, signal your location and call 112. Do not jump or enter smoke to retrieve property.

Call from safety

India’s 112 system can dispatch fire and other emergency services. Give the full address, floor, entrance, number of people who may be inside and any known hazards. Stay available to direct responders without re-entering. Do not attempt to fight a growing fire. A portable extinguisher is for an appropriate small, early-stage fire only when the user is trained, has the right equipment and has a clear escape route.

In your flat: the first minute, step by step

1. Raise the alarm calmly. Tell everyone at home to leave now, children and elders first. The Delhi Fire Service asks people not to shout or run, because that causes panic, so say it firmly and keep moving.
2. Do not stop to fight it unless it is tiny. The Delhi Fire Service says a fire may be attacked only if you can do so without undue risk, and the Goa plan says to put out a small fire but, if it is spreading, to get out and close the door behind you. In a flat, with smoke filling the room fast, our advice is simpler: unless it is a very small fire right next to you and you know how to use the extinguisher, leave. Our guide to using a fire extinguisher covers that side.
3. Stay low if there is smoke. Smoke rises to the ceiling. The Goa fire service plan says to stay low and crawl to the nearest exit when there is light smoke, and a University of Illinois Chicago safety page says the same. Our guides to being stuck in a smoke-filled room and to breathing and the wet cloth go through it in more detail.
4. Feel the door before you open it. The US Fire Administration says to feel the door with the back of your hand, and if it is hot, to leave it closed and use your second way out. If your flat has only one door to the stairs and that door is hot, go to the steps below for when you cannot get out.
5. Close the doors behind you. The Delhi Fire Service asks people to close all doors and windows behind them as they leave. It costs a second.
6. Take the stairs, never the lift. The Delhi Fire Service says not to use the lift as a means of escape, and the Goa plan says a lift can stop at the fire floor or fail.
7. Go down and out, not up. The Goa plan says never to evacuate to the roof. Our suggestion: if the stairs below you are full of smoke, do not climb up on your own. Go back into a room of your flat and follow the steps below.
8. Meet at the agreed spot and count heads. The Delhi Fire Service asks people to report to the person in charge at the assembly point. In a society, that is the place you agreed on with your neighbours. If someone is missing, tell the fire officers when they arrive. Do not go back in yourself.
9. Call 101 or 112. 101 is the fire brigade and 112 is the all-emergency number. The Delhi Fire Service says to dial 101 irrespective of the size of the fire. Give the building name, full address, floor and flat number, and say if anyone may still be inside. Our page on the fire brigade number and what to say has the details.

If you cannot get out of the flat

This is for when the door to the stairs is hot, the corridor is full of smoke or the flames are between you and the exit. The steps below come from the Goa Directorate of Fire and Emergency Services evacuation plan, the Manipur State Disaster Management Authority fire sheet and the US Fire Administration. Where we add something of our own, we say so.

1. Go to a room with a window, as far from the fire as you can reach, and shut the door behind you. The Manipur sheet says to lie down or sit near the floor, cut down the smoke entering the room and look for an exit.
2. Block the gaps. The US Fire Administration says to close the door and cover the vents and cracks around it with cloth. The Goa plan says to use wet clothing or towels around the cracks of doors and to seal vents. The sources differ on wet or dry, and we found no test that settles it, so use the thickest cloth within reach. Wet it only if there is water at hand and it costs you no time.
3. Call 101 or 112 and say exactly where you are: building, floor, flat number and which room. If you have no phone, the Goa plan says to signal at the window for help.
4. Signal from the window with a light-coloured cloth or a torch, as the US Fire Administration advises. Our suggestion: a whistle, if you have one, carries further than your voice.
5. Stay low and cover your nose and mouth with a cloth. The Manipur sheet says to breathe through a wet cloth, so wet it if water is at hand. This is a last resort, not protection from carbon monoxide.
6. Do not break the window, and do not jump. The Goa plan warns that flames and smoke can travel back in from outside, and says to wait to be rescued if you are above the second floor. The sources we read do not settle whether to open a window for air: the Goa plan allows a small crack that you can shut at once, while our guide to a smoke-filled room says to keep it shut. Our suggestion: keep it shut unless you need to call out or signal.
7. A balcony can be a place to signal from. This is our suggestion, not an official instruction: if the room opens onto a balcony that is clear of smoke and flames, step out, pull the door shut behind you so that smoke stays in, and make yourself seen. If smoke or flames are coming from below or from a neighbouring balcony, stay in the room at the window instead. We did not find an official Indian page on balconies.

When to leave and when to stay inside

If the fire is in your flat, you leave. If it is in another flat or on another floor, the pages we could open do not settle it. The Delhi Fire Service says to leave by the nearest available exit, and the Goa plan is written around getting out by the stairs, but neither gives a separate rule for people whose own flat is untouched, and we did not find an official Indian instruction to stay inside in that case. What follows is our suggestion:

• Feel your own door with the back of your hand. If it is cool and the corridor and stairs are clear of smoke, leave by the stairs and close the door behind you.
• If there is smoke in the corridor or on the stairs, do not push through it. Go back in, close the door and follow the steps above for when you cannot get out.
• When you call, follow what the control room and the fire officers on the spot tell you.
• For a tall building, our guide to high-rise fire safety goes further.

Make the plan work for everyone

Test warning arrangements as required, maintain exits and equipment, and practise how children, visitors and people needing assistance will leave. Correct blocked routes or failed devices promptly and seek competent local advice on the applicable rules. This is general escape guidance, not certification that any particular building is safe.

Do this today

• Walk through your flat and count the ways out: the main door, any second door and the balcony. Our suggestion: if your doors or windows have grilles, keep the keys where everyone at home can find them, and check that someone can open them from inside.
• If you have a smoke alarm, test it. Our guide to fitting, testing and caring for smoke detectors shows how.
• Write the building name, address, floor and flat number on a card near the phone. Our page on a 112 call information card has a template idea.
• Agree on a meeting point outside, and read our home fire escape plan with the family.
• Keep a torch, a whistle and a light-coloured cloth where you sleep.
• The kitchen is where many home fires begin. Our seven kitchen fire rules take five minutes to read.

Cover note: AI-generated editorial illustration of a fictional family safely outside with a firefighter, not a real fire photograph.

Source boundaries: See the Indian fire-services escape-planning materials (including “Plan Your Escape Route”) and MHA ERSS for the 112 emergency number. Older fire leaflets may list a different emergency number; use the current Indian emergency system.