Reduce Key Ring Clutter to Avoid Delays in Emergencies

The Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) is urging householders to minimise the number of keys carried on key rings to avoid delays when exiting the home during an emergency.

“You don’t need to have all those keys that are not being used at home on your house keys,” said JFB Superintendent, Emeleo Ebanks, during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’ at the agency’s head office in Kingston.

He informed that minimising the number of keys would reduce the time spent trying to find the one to open a specific door or lock.

“Once you get to that lock, you don’t have to be going through 10 or more keys and figuring out which is which. Keep it to a minimum,” Superintendent Ebanks emphasised.

He cited an incident in which a resident could not escape a burning house in time due to apparent difficulty in finding the correct key in a large set.

“There is one very grim incident I can recall where we got to a scene and a lady was dead on her veranda grasping a bunch of keys. She just could not get out; there were about 10 keys on the bunch,” the JFB officer shared.

Mr. Ebanks said keys should only be given to responsible members of households, “so in the event that you lose yours, then you can have another one and you can go cut a key off that one.”

Meanwhile, JFB Deputy Commissioner, Sean Martin, encourages citizens to use padlocks that allow a single key to open multiple locks, while also emphasising the importance of separating internal and external keys. The ‘keyed alike’ padlocks are recommended.

“I keep my external keys by themselves [and] the internal keys are on a key rack inside my house. What I do is use one key for two padlocks for the front grill, and I try to use a different [key] for the side entrance, so that I can identify [them] easily,” Mr. Martin said, adding “you don’t want to be shuffling through your keys in an emergency.”

The JFB observed Fire and Life Safety Awareness Week from October 27 to November 2 under the theme: ‘Embracing Digital Innovation to Improve Fire Safety’.