Why is it that when you’re clothes catch fire, your supposed to stop drop and roll? I do understand how stop-drop-roll works. But wouldn’t it be better to just remove your clothes? Especially if its clothes that don’t need to go over ur face to be taken off.
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I think they do it so it’s easy to remember. Smothering or depriving the fire of oxygen puts it out.
STOP, DROP AND ROLL is said because when you are on fire it’s a fight or flight thing.
Fire makes most people run and running makes the fire bigger.
Knowing how to stop it and repeating it yearly from early on (kindergarten, preschool) it’s the immediate thought, instead of flight.
In movies when someone is on fire and they are running I am screaming ….STOP! DROP! ROLL! in my head.
Aside from the other excellent answers, it’s also a matter of what your clothes are made of.
Pure cotton clothes (like lab coats, yeah that’s specific but I’ve been taught this in chemistry classes lol) would simply burn off. It may still give you nasty burns, but a pure cotton fabric will burn away. Synthetic clothing will melt and stick to your skin. Garanteed nasty, nasty burns.
And in panic of being literally on fire, it’s better to try and kill off the flame rather to take the time to ponder “oh well, I have cotton clothing, I can take ’em off”
Something nobody is mentioning is that it’s a slogan we teach kids, and it sticks so well that we bring it into adulthood.
Can you imagine trying to teach kids to “take off your clothes!” How well would that go over?
You have to have SOMETHING that will work that you ingrain into people, because otherwise they will usually just stand there trying to put it out with their hands or panicking. But “Stop, drop, and roll” is a lot easier to remember than “take off all your clothes as fast as you can” and is something we CAN teach to kids without getting on a list…
If you drop and roll, the fire should be put out. If you panic and take off the article of clothing you are probably not going to drop the clothes and stomp out the fire, you are more likely going to throw it away from you possibly starting a lot larger of a fire.
It’s hard to take off clothes fusing with your burning flesh. DO NOT REMOVE CLOTHING FROM A BURN VICTIM. Let doctors do this at the hospital. You will, likely, be causing harm if you strip the clothing from the burn.
Depending on the cloths, they will melt to your flesh and can’t be removed very quickly. At that point not only are your cloths on fire but so is your flesh.
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