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Thread: Fire / Emergeny Evacuation Planning

 
  1. #1
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    Blue & Gold Macaw "Jack" | Military Macaw "Maynard" - RIP | Hyacinth Macaw "Zaffer" - RIP | Green-wing Macaw "Salsa" | Nanday Conure "Bozley"

    Fire / Emergeny Evacuation Planning

    Emergency preparedness should be considered a crucial priority by those of us entrusted with the health and safety of pets. One element of companion bird guardianship which folks tend to overlook is evacuation readiness. Catastrophes such as fires, toxic contamination events, and approaching wind storms or potential floods are a few of the unexpected situations requiring rapid decisions and immediate access to appropriate equipment.

    An evacuation plan for our pet birds is essential. Such a plan should entail a workable process. Since fire, smoke from fire, and other toxins may spread very quickly within a building, it's crucially important to have easily maneuverable transport enclosures available and prepared for each of our feathered friends. Additionally, serious thought should be given to the order in which our birds would be placed into their respective transport enclosures and removed from the premises. Depending upon the severity of a potential event (e.g., the size and disposition of a fire), as well as upon the configuration of the building involved and the proximity of your birds to a rapidly emerging hazard, and certainly upon whether there are other humans available to assist during such a situation, it may become a judgement call as to whether something like a small fire should receive extinguishing efforts ahead of any evacuation efforts, or whether you should immediately focus on evacuating your birds. Smoke (and certainly fire) may quickly result in death for pet birds. However, when multiple birds are involved in this type of emergency but only one human is present, the best approach may be to attempt eradication of a small fire before evacuating the birds. This would obviously not be a possibility with a fire that has become too large to extinguish.

    Never use flour to extinguish a fire! And never use water on a grease fire or an electrical fire! Baking soda may be used as an extinguishing medium, especially since it is non-toxic for birds. Fire extinguishers may emit toxins that are quite dangerous for birds to breathe. There are varying types of fire extinguishers available and some of them eject substances that are more dangerous than others for our birds. It may be a good idea to ask your avian veterinarian which types of fire extinguishers are the safest to keep around pet birds in a home.

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    If you currently have an evacuation plan, please reassess it and fine tune it (if need be). If you do not have an evacuation plan, please develop one!

  2. The following 4 users like this post:

    94lt1 (10-26-2014), froggij (10-26-2014), josiesmom (10-26-2014), Lady (10-25-2014)

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