[SCAQTony]

After that terrible fire in England I would recommend getting a 150-meter climbing rope, a harness and an aluminum "figure-eight" and learn how to repel as a means of escape in case the smoke became far too overwhelming. But that's just me. I live in a house.

[pyrale]

...Or just stop building high rises. It's always fascinating from an european PoV to see that in e.g. NY you have 60 floor housing buildings, and then close to them you have a sea of personal homes, each with a garden, large roads and no public transportation.

On the other hand, Paris is mostly 4-8 floor buildings and manages to have a better population density than the aggregate NY agglomeration.

I would assume that properly spaced 6-floor appartment blocks with two stairwells and a couple parks in the neighbourhood to evacuate to would reduce fire casualties dramatically, while also offering enough density for efficient transportation networks.

[EGreg]

I had an invention that could help many people escape from a building:

Magnetic strips on the side of the building, and backpacks with metal.

You put on the backpack and shimmy down. Just in case, you also strap yourself onto the slide by its sides, so as not to disconnect from it and fall off.

This is better than a rope because it can hold many people simultaneously.

Do the magnets wear out over time though?

[vlehto]

Magnets are probably way too expensive. Especially as you could get same functionality with regular fire ladder.

[EGreg]

How would you shimmy down the ladder?

But yes I suppose technically you can have rollers in vertical struts and have them roll down inside the rails, carrying the person.

[make3]

or if you've lost too much weight or there is crap on the magnet and less friction, and suddenly your stuck in the air pasted to a burning building xD

[rsynnott]

That building had defective/improperly specced modifications. It's extremely unusual for a high-rise fire to cause that sort of death and destruction. If everyone who currently lived in high-rises lived in houses, more cars would be required, and the extra road deaths would easily exceed the fire deaths...

[peterwwillis]

Not that I'm telling anyone to rappel down a building, but there are at least four ways to rappel or lower yourself with just a rope and no gear (I highly recommend getting a professional to teach you first). But even so, most new apartments on high floors have aluminum ladders to deploy out a window.

[puranjay]

It's strange when I hear about fires. I live in India and "fire" has never been a thing we thought of. It was rare to ever even see a fire brigade truck.

Maybe because most houses in India are made of brick?

[kbart]

According to statistics[0] you are about >5 times more likely to die in fire in India than pretty much any Western country. Just because you don't see it personally doesn't prove anything. What houses are made of are less relevant than finish and insulation materials used, furniture, carpets, type of heating, stove etc.

0. http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/fires/by-c...

[olau]

Yeah, fires are rare but deadly. Building codes for materials and escape routes, fire alarms and similar are preventive measures.

For instance, where I live there's a rule for houses that all rooms where people might sleep in must have a window big enough to allow a person to escape. Of course, unless you're interested in building a house, you'll never know about this rule.

It's a bit like a seatbelt or an airbag. How often have you actually needed those? Perhaps never. But the day an accident happens, it could easily save your life.

[toomanybeersies]

What happens when the fire is on a lower floor and melts/burns your rope because the fire is going out the window?

[WalterBright]

Go out a different window.

It makes sense to keep a fire axe in your apartment, so you can make your own doorways/windows as needed in a fire. Also good against zombie attacks.

[rsynnott]

In a large high-rise, the majority of apartments will only have windows on one side (unless there's an inner core or something).

[WalterBright]

I wasn't clear about what to do with the fire axe - go into the hall, and cut through the door to an apartment on another side.

Fire axes are designed specifically for that sort of job.

[KaiserPro]

You'll need a rope bag, otherwise your rope will burn, and also the weight will lock your figure 8

[Symbiote]

There have been many other fires in England where the building hadn't been illegally modified and the firebreaks worked as intended.