Every day Ukraine burns. What you need to know to get out of fire

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Alice Smahina

According to the State Emergency Service, 4,400 fires occurred in the first month of 2021 alone, 245 people died and 156 were injured. Every day, they detect over a hundred fires in the country; most of them occur in the residential sector. They also record a significant percentage of fires in transport and elsewhere. The year has just begun, and the country has already been hit by several large-scale fires in an Odesa hotel, a Kharkiv home for the elderly, the Epicenter in the Mykolaiv region, and the Zaporizhzhia Infectious Diseases Hospital.

At the end of January, the Rada passed a draft law that would increase the fines tenfold for violating fire safety. It's not the first attempt to influence entrepreneurs and careless homeowners through punishment, but it's not yet possible to suppress the mental habit of our compatriots to rely on "God" with fines alone. Every year, inspectors repeatedly find a shortage, malfunction, or failure of maintenance of fire protection systems at thousands of facilities, a huge number of power supply systems need replacing or repairing; in many places, there's no even primary fire extinguishing equipment.

It's clear that, as in many other life situations, ordinary Ukrainians mostly have to rely only on themselves again to save their lives and the lives of their loved ones in the event of a fire.

What to do when there's a fire at work, at home, in transport, in a cinema or a shopping center? In school, we're taught how to behave in case of fire. Some tips, like provided truths, are stored in the mind forever, while others are eventually erased from memory. We've structured advice on what to do in case of fire and what not to do in any case. We hope that this selection will help you in a dangerous situation.