Fire Safety Education in Indian Schools: What to Teach and How

Children spend about six hours a day in school, and what they learn there they carry home. Ask any teacher: a child who has just learnt about fire will come home and check the gas knob, tell off an uncle who smokes in bed and ask where the family would meet if the house caught fire. That makes the classroom one of the best places to teach fire safety.

But lessons are only half of it. On 16 July 2004, a fire broke out in a school building in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, that housed three schools with more than 870 students. The Union Home Minister told the Rajya Sabha on 19 July that 90 children had died and 19 were injured. Later accounts often give the final toll as 94. His statement described a thatched area in the school, a meal kitchen nearby, one narrow staircase, no emergency exit and a crowded way out. No classroom lesson can make up for a building like that. Safe buildings and good teaching have to go together.

What children should learn

How fires start

Teach children what starts fires in Indian homes and schools: an unattended stove or kadhai, an overloaded extension board, a mosquito coil near a curtain, a diya near a dupatta, crackers, candles and matches. Use examples from your own area, such as stubble burning, bonfires in winter or festival decorations.

What to do when they see fire or smoke

• Tell an adult straight away. Never hide, especially not under a bed or in a cupboard.
• Leave the room and the building. Do not go back for a bag, a pet or a phone.
• If there is smoke, get down low and crawl, where the air is cleaner.
• If your clothes catch fire, stop, drop to the ground and roll.
• Know the fire brigade number, 101, and the emergency number, 112.

What children should never be asked to do

Children should not be asked to fight a fire or rescue other people. That is the job of trained adults and the fire brigade. A child’s job is to raise the alarm, leave calmly and stay with the class.

How to teach it

Children remember what they see and do, not what they copy from the board.

• Walk the routes. Take each class along its main exit and its second exit, all the way to the assembly point.
• Use maps. Ask older students to draw the evacuation map for their own floor.
• Tell real stories, suited to their age, about what went wrong and what saved people.
• Practise often. Hold drills through the year, at different times of day, and include children who use wheelchairs, cannot see or hear well, or need extra help.
• Send homework. Ask each child to sit with the family and find two ways out of their home and a meeting point outside.

Keep drills calm and safe. There is no need for theatrical smoke or frightening simulations with small children.

Where to find Indian teaching material

You do not need to buy anything. Free material is available from:

• the Ministry of Education’s Guidelines on School Safety and Security, which ask every school to have its own safety plan, clear roles for staff, training for teachers and students, awareness activities and regular drills;
• the Directorate General Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards, which publishes fire safety awareness material;
• the National Institute of Disaster Management, which has school safety learning material;
• your local fire station, which may send officers to talk to students or watch a drill.

The adults’ job

The principal, management and staff carry the bigger responsibility. Keep every exit unlocked during school hours and both staircases clear of furniture and stock. Keep the mid-day meal kitchen, gas cylinders and laboratory chemicals away from classrooms and escape routes. Make sure the alarm can be heard in every classroom, washroom, lab and playground. Keep class, staff and visitor registers up to date so you can count heads at the assembly point. Give named adults the job of helping children who need it.

This week, ask one child in each class to point to the nearest exit and the second exit. If they cannot, that is your next lesson.