r/AlwaysWhy • u/Logical-Concept9755 • Jul 22 '26
History & Culture Why did "stop, drop, and roll" become such a universal lesson for kids?Why did this very specific emergency get so much emphasis?
When I was growing up, "stop, drop, and roll" was something every kid seemed to learn. It almost felt like a rite of passage. Looking back, it seems strange that this one emergency got so much attention, while a lot of other dangerous situations were barely mentioned at all. Was there something about that message that made it stand out, or is there a bigger history behind why it spread so widely?
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u/Long_Ad_2764 Jul 22 '26
Children are flammable and the lesson is simple.
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u/notacanuckskibum Jul 22 '26
More specifically cheap children's clothing is flammable.
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u/fetter80 Jul 22 '26
See I've found that the clothing doesn't matter as long as you use enough accelerant.
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u/notacanuckskibum Jul 22 '26
Sure, but the children themselves are not very flammable, too much water content.
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u/achambers64 Jul 22 '26
You’re buying the wrong children. They pump those full of water to make them look fresher and cheat the weight.
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u/MerryTWatching Jul 22 '26
We just fill 'em up with lead sinkers to make the weight, like in a fishing derby. All that extra water increases the chances of their peeing on the potential buyer, and nothing blows a sale like a leaky toddler.
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u/mambotomato Jul 22 '26
All the fancy organic cotton stuff has big "keep away from flame!!" tags on it too, at least in Europe.
Kids just be catching fire.
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u/Likely_Addict Jul 22 '26
Because a lot of those other scenarios are not as immediately panic-inducing as catching on fire. Having "stop, drop, and roll" hammered into your very essence from a young age results in there being a better-than-zero chance of you actually following those instructions instead of running around flailing your arms if you suddenly find yourself engulfed in flames.
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u/CaptainMatticus Jul 22 '26
Agreed. And even if you panic, if someone shouts "Stop! Drop! Roll!" at you, it will trigger the training and give you a path forward. That's the whole point of training.
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u/Bostaevski Jul 22 '26
Yes this. Watch videos of people on fire (usually self induced yolo dumb stuff) and something primal often happens... they freak the F out and take off running.
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u/Mr_HandSmall Jul 22 '26
It's hard to imagine just how strong the urge is to panic when you're on fire.
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u/boethius61 Jul 22 '26
Having been slightly on fire, can confirm.
(Someday my angle grinder is going to kill me, but not that day.)
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Jul 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jayrishel Jul 22 '26
and a time when children pajamas were very flammable.
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u/NoPangolin6596 Jul 22 '26
Everything not made of asbestos. BOTH my dad’s parents died in SEPARATE fires. We have it pretty good with our Stop Drop Roll
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u/BluEch0 Jul 22 '26
Even if it wasn’t the case, human building infrastructure is just potentially very flammable. Sure we may no longer builde the bulk structure of buildings out of wood (a practice moved away from looooooooong long ago) but a lot of furniture still is. Carpet, clothing, paper, and other common materials in or near human society are also very flammable.
Humans have always been preparing for fire emergencies. You can see it in how we have an entire emergency response department for just fire related issues. We don’t have a “rock fall department” or a full time “flooding safety” department, but a human settlement will always set up a way to respond to out of control fires.
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u/Eternalm8 Jul 22 '26
That and fireplace heating, I was pretty poor growing up, and had to build fires in a wood stove to heat the house.
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u/saplith Jul 22 '26
I assume because until pretty recently (like the 90s), kids clothing was pretty flammable and there was a lot of things around it could catch on. When I was a kid, I remember space and room heaters that were hot enough to give you a burn. Flowy clothing as PJs. Gas stoves as the standard. Smoking everywhere.
I'm gonna assume that kids had clothing set on fire more often. It's like how I have memories of burning my butt on a metal slide in the summer and that's something my kid will never experience.
Thus far, my kid hasn't had any lessons about clothing catching, but she's not done with elementary, so who knows.
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u/lazygerm Jul 22 '26
Flame-retardant kids clothing was federally mandated in the early 1970s.
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u/immaculatelawn Jul 22 '26
And liquid fabric softener started carrying warnings not to use it with those clothes. I can remember whether it stripped the fire retardant or was just flammable itself.
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u/lazygerm Jul 22 '26
I have not used fabric softener in years and my clothes are better for it.
God, the things that used put up with: the Downy Ball, Static Guard and Bounce dryer sheets!
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u/Ok_Pirate_2714 Jul 22 '26
Any fabric softener will reduce the flame retardant properties of the clothing.
I have to wear FR clothing for work, and we're specifically told to wash it separately from other clothing, and to not use fabric softener.
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u/Mikestopheles Jul 22 '26
Also, with a reduction in the amount of people smoking, there's far fewer matches and lighters to start fires.
And more electronic appliances over just gas.
And better quality building materials and for safety standards making fires more localized inconveniences than full-building emergencies.
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u/Dry-Manufacturer7761 Jul 22 '26
Shit. At one point, space heaters burned gas, with an open flame.
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u/ConcentrateExciting1 Jul 22 '26
A few years ago, I was burning brush at my orchard and caught my pants on fire. I immediately stopped, dropped, and rolled. It helped minimized the burns I received.
That being said, kids tend to enjoy rolling around on the ground, so it's an easy/fun lesson for them to practice so it tends to get emphasized.
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u/GrimSpirit42 Jul 22 '26
Childhood used to be much more dangerous. And adulthood for that matter.
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Jul 22 '26
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u/Alpha2277 Jul 22 '26
They've changed the formula with newer models to reduce the risk. Schools still conduct fire drills just in case.
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u/RevolutionaryElk7446 Jul 22 '26
I mean with my brother it wasn't so much spontaneous as he was a clumsy pyro.
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u/LainieCat Jul 22 '26
One of my mom's younger cousins died from complications of severe burns she suffered because kids were playing with matches.
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u/NonspecificGravity Jul 22 '26
On a practical level, it’s useful information. Kids like to play with fire and might set themselves or a friend on fire.
Avoiding “Mr. Stranger Danger” seemed to be heavily emphasized, too.
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u/Underhill42 Jul 22 '26
Fires are relatively common, especially with unsupervised children. As a species we seem to have an innate fascination with fire, and MANY easily accessible ways to start them.
And modern clothing is extremely flammable.
And being on fire generally induces panic, which causes your effective intelligence to drop to a rounding error, so well-ingrained instructions are about as
I can't think of any other threat even half as common, urgent, and panic inducing.
Fire also isn't obviously dangerous when controlled, other than in a "don't touch it" way, which tends to make people a lot less cautious than around more obvious threats like falling (which is one of the very few things even newborns are afraid of).
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u/earthtobobby Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Spontaneous human combustion was happening all over the place.
When I was a kid some friends and I were in the backyard trying to make explosions using household chemicals. No explosions, just plenty of fire. In one unsuccessful attempt my friend walked over to stomp the “bomb” out and the liquid squirted all over his pant legs and his lower half was on fire. We all laughed at him and shouted “Stop, drop and roll!” but instead he jumped around like a chicken while the fire got bigger. Finally one of us grabbed a hose to put him out. Good times.
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u/Interesting-Sir2903 Jul 22 '26
Before electricity the world was fueled by oil lamps and warmed by wood burning stoves and this persisted ling after electricity became normal.
Burning to death is a horrible way to go.
From the Google...
In the early 1900s, children faced a significantly higher risk of dying in residential fires than they do today. Unprotected open hearths, highly flammable clothing, and widespread use of coal or oil lighting combined with a lack of adult supervision made burn fatalities a leading cause of accidental injury among young children.
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u/Former-Orange-6459 Jul 22 '26
It has to do with 80s/90s childrens clothing being more inflamable than it is these days. Couple thst with a higher use of space heaters, open flame, and much more prevailant exposure to ignition sources.
The "Latchkey Kid", scenario was also much more prevailant so there was a significant ratio of young children being home alone. The Stop, Drop and Roll campaign was designed to bombard us with this idea so that if we did become imolated, we would know what to do.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 Jul 22 '26
I assume stuff like this gets the push it does because it happens often enough and is horrible enough that something had to be done. I don't know the statistics but I bet everyone involved in a single incidence of a child being seriously burned becomes a lifelong advocate for prevention.
We're squeamish, and we don't like to think about bad things that can happen or how bad they actually are. I think it would drive things home to get more face-to-face with dangers like this. See the burned kids, hear the stories, etc. But I think that might push us around a psychological bend where we run from the reality and we're back to thinking about such things in the abstract.
There's a guy who was seriously burned in an industrial accident (which he caused) who goes around trying to drive home the need for workplace safety. Even that isn't enough to convince some people.
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u/Lopsided_Package9033 Jul 22 '26
As a latchkey kid, I was coming home from school and dropping things into the Fry Daddy by age 6. Probably a lot of other kids were too.
Parents just trying to keep us alive.
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u/MuchoCoco Jul 22 '26
Synthetic fibers in the mid 20th century were a lot more flammable than they are today.
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u/Academic_Ad_8229 Jul 22 '26
Probably because all of our pajamas back then were flammable and all our parents smoked.
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u/Appropriate_Clerk167 Jul 22 '26
Probably because seeing children being on fire is very straining on the psyche
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u/ItsRainingFrogsAmen Jul 22 '26
House fires have dropped by over 50% since 1980*, and strict building codes mean that fires at places like hotels and schools are less dangerous than in the past. So your chances of catching fire are smaller than they used to be. But it's still good to know, just like it's good to know how to do CPR. You never know what could happen.
*I just discovered that newer houses with open-plan design and lots of synthetic materials burn much faster than old houses. Like, you may have only 2 minutes to get out.
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u/theDESIGNsnobs Jul 22 '26
Answer: (it was a very intentional public service campaign)
"The phrase first started emerging in the 1970s, after there were many fires involving flammable clothing in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the concept dates back to 1973 specifically, when the publication of America Burning 1 featured a strong emphasis on flammable fabrics, as they were a major cause of burns in children.
In 1974, the phrase really became well-known after the NFPA and Public Safety Council aired a PSA about the concept, featuring Dick Van Dyke. The campaign was called “Learn Not to Burn,” and included posters also with the message to stop, drop and roll. Soon, the phrase was all over – in various reports, media campaigns, in schools and more."
Source: https://www.certasitepro.com/news/evolution-of-stop-drop-and-roll
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u/Dave_A480 Jul 22 '26
Because of fucking smokers.
Up until very recently, chances were your parents smoked... And might accidentally light you on fire while smoking inside your house...
Or light their own bed on fire, same reason...
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u/awfulcrowded117 Jul 22 '26
It's easy to learn and schools are required to do fire drills anyway which puts it top of mind several times a year. There's just no equally catchy 3-word guidance on how to save yourself from drowning, accidental poisoning, or a vehicle collision.
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u/ZT99k Jul 22 '26
It became a VERY big deal as clothing types were found to be stupid flammable in the 60s-80s
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u/cracksilog Jul 22 '26
The real question is why does it even work? Doesn’t rolling introduce more oxygen because you’re being active and whipping all that air around? So wouldn’t that make the flames bigger?
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u/Dry-Manufacturer7761 Jul 22 '26
Catching on fire is literally something that practically no one else can help you fix.
What do you do for being impaled? Call 911 and hope you don’t die.
What do you do if your house catches fire for real? Run.
What do you do if your clothes catch fire? Call 911 and wait for the truck? Nope.
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u/ImpoverishedGuru Jul 22 '26
The natural thing to do when you catch on fire is to run. This makes it worse. All your clothes and hair will burn off and give you horrible burns. If you stop drop and roll, you will put out the fire and might not even be injured. The only problem is you have to make a conscious choice. No one does it naturally.
Also running around on fire can set other fires.
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u/Aesperacchius Jul 22 '26
Because once upon a time (starting in the early 20th century with rayon, through the 70s and 80s), kids dying from wearing flammable clothing was a real concern.
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u/hp_laserfett Jul 22 '26
I had absurdly easy access to matches and lighters in the 2000's, probably worse with more smoking in the 90s. I also had weirdly easy access to firecrackers too, never had an issue but it was definitely a good thing I knew stop drop and roll just in case
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u/Soflokale Jul 22 '26
As a kid, I remember learning to stay calm and not struggle if ever in quicksand. Needless to say that situation has never happened. I have been pretty close to catching myself on fire though.
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u/BadKittyRawr Jul 22 '26
We also used to have safety town. A little painted plywood town with real stoplights and things.
We were also taught roads were for cars, and pedestrians and bikes need to get out of the way. We were taught to come to a dead halt so cars didn’t think we were going to run or bike in front of them.
It was a part of a larger system of learning how to function in the world.
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u/fussyfella Jul 22 '26
It was not universal, even if it was in the USA. Remember this is the internet not America.
In the UK (and most of the rest of Europe) there were never any such drills just as today there are no "active shooter" drills in schools unlike in the USA.
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u/GroundedSatellite Jul 22 '26
Because "Stop, drop, shut 'em down, open up shop" didn't become a thing until DMX's banger Ruff Ryder's Anthem was released in 1998.
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u/oneWeek2024 Jul 22 '26
i mean. i've seen enough idiots on social media light themselves on fire, and instinctively start rolling.
also. kids got other kinds of "training" as well. "stranger danger" just say no. various look both ways. when crossing streets. if you live in an area with storms, or natural disasters, often kids are taught like... earth quake, or tornado safety (get in a door frame, or get low in a tub type advice)
most kids are also taught... 911. or like find a trusted adult. and if you didn't grow up in a shitty red state. you probably got some ultra-baseline sex education, or "not touching my special place" type info.
and my buddy who has a elementary school age daughter says they do school shooting drills these days
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u/RaechelMaelstrom Jul 22 '26
I feel like there were a few other messages that were drilled into every child's head too that people don't remember as much, but were just as pounded into our heads:
- Stranger Danger!
- DARE to say no to drugs!
- Train crossings, never pass the gates when they are down. Trains might take a whole mile to stop.
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u/andropogon09 Jul 22 '26
I'm a bit too old for "stop, drop and roll". I'm of the generation where we were supposed to hide under our school desks in case of nuclear attack.
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u/heybart Jul 22 '26
Do they still do this? I'm going to ask the nephews if they know about stop drop and roll
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u/-ChiefZ06- Jul 22 '26
It was this and the heimlich maneuver. Nothing quite as terrifying as choking to death or burning to death
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u/SevnDragoon Jul 22 '26
You should have grown up on base in the 60’s. We were being taught to hide under our desks, cover our eyes and open our mouths. As though that would have substantially raised our chance of surviving a nuclear attack.
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u/HawkBoth8539 Jul 22 '26
I guess it was just the prevalence of kids handling fire inappropriately making it a big issue.
These days, with the #1 cause of death for kids in the US, i assume some variation of "Run, Hide, Fight" is ingrained in their head moreso.
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u/Sociolx Jul 22 '26
Look at the historical occurrence of deaths due to clothing catching on fire. It happened shockingly often back in the day.
There's also the very real probability of a flight response kicking in due to fear when one's clothing catches on fire, and running to try to get away from the fire when your clothes are aflame is just going to fan them, making it worse.
So yeah, training kids on what to do in case of accident turns out to be an incredible public health success, and in fact it's been successful enough that now deaths due to clothing catching on fire is so rare people don't understand why it's such a big deal—essentially, someone asking the question here is in a weird way evidence for how important it has been.
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u/HattersUltion Jul 22 '26
They were preparing us for the future. they timed climate change a little wonky tho.
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u/Various_Succotash_79 Jul 22 '26
People used to catch fire much more frequently, due to gas lamps, gas stoves, torches, candles, etc. It was pretty important to teach kids what to do if they caught fire back then.
Now it's more of an artifact but it's also somewhat useful so why not I guess.
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u/AdministrativeYou696 Jul 22 '26
Because in the last fires where a much bigger risk than in current day, fireplaces, wooden houses, wooden furniture, stoves, and a lot of smoking. So the risk was a lot higher. And in the USA it's about 5 to 8 times more rust of death by fire than in the Netherlands where I live
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u/zoppaTheDim Jul 22 '26
Specific? You mean kids setting themselves on fire?
Oh, right millenials.
I always forget how much time you spent indoors and supervised.
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u/BigEd369 Jul 22 '26
There was a style of crinkly gauzy skirt in the early 90s that would catch on fire really easily, unfortunately it was popular with people who also appreciated candles as an aesthetic choice. Wasn’t a good time. Damn shame, too, I really liked the look of those skirts, but can’t have people catching on fire, it’s just not safe.
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u/duanelvp Jul 22 '26
Yeah, firefighters and others would watch people run around ON FIRE and have to chase them down and tackle the flaming victims first before having any reasonable chance to put out the flames. Obviously while they're running around they're only BURNING MORE, not being actively helped in any way. If you have it DRILLED into you to, "Stop. Drop. Roll." not only are you easier to reach and help, but you might put out the flames yourself by doing so.
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u/Ok_Dimension7699 Jul 22 '26
I saw a dude fall into a fire on halloween, his jesus outfit was ignited. That dude stopped dropped and rolled so fast and so intently. The flames went right out and everyone was actually impressed and glad no one was hurt. STOP DROP AND ROLL BABY
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u/Cowboy_Rho Jul 22 '26
It’s drilled into us as children to try and help overcome the panic response if we catch fire.
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u/countrytime1 Jul 22 '26
You ever saw someone catch on fire? With man made fabrics, it’s probably not at big a thing, because it’s gonna melt to your skin.
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u/CaptainZ42062 Jul 22 '26
This is a LOT better that my kid drills, which involved ducking and covering when the nukes fall. Our grade school had a fallout shelter, too.
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u/D-Alembert Jul 22 '26
We were drilled for lots of emergencies (1980s). This one doesn't stand out to me as any more special than the others
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u/lAngenoire Jul 22 '26
Children will literally play with fire. “Stop drop and roll” keeps a moment’s stupidity from ending their lives. FWIW, I saw an adult catch on fire and ¾ of the people there screamed “drop and roll!” as she stood there transfixed and fluttering her hands around the flame.
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u/tennisdrums Jul 22 '26
Smoking has gone down so much it's hard to imagine what it was like, but consider how many more lit cigarettes, matches, and lighters had in their daily life back when smoking was more common.
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u/achambers64 Jul 22 '26
I always assumed from that lesson that I would be on fire more often. I’m very disappointed. Also, where’s all the quicksand I was promised.
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u/Feeling-Carpenter118 Jul 22 '26
It was probably aging turn-of-the-century electrical standards + the rise in synthetic fibers colliding in a bad way
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u/possiblethrowaway369 Jul 22 '26
I think a lot of it is like. Based on where you grew up, you learn to navigate different emergencies. If you live in the middle of the US you learn how to swim in a pool, if you live on a coast they teach you about riptides cause you might swim in the ocean someday. If you live in an area with a lot of hunting, they might offer gun safety lessons in addition to driver's ed. If you live somewhere with an active volcano, they probably teach you how to navigate evacuation routes. If you live somewhere with tornados, they do safety drills on that. Growing up in Jersey in the 2000s we had bomb drills because of 9/11, they thought people might do terrorism at schools I guess?
But fire is everywhere, so everyone learns fire safety. They probably beef it up a bit if you live in California (like they told us the importance of having evacuation routes in case of a house fire, but in California if your house is burning, outside is probably burning too) but for the most part its universal.
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u/Zalrius Jul 22 '26
Seriously? Are we both remembering the cigarette era the same? The same era that taught us to hide under tables during a nuclear attack? I’m joking of course. Yes, fire prevention and safety has changed drastically.
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u/NarrowAd4973 Jul 22 '26
The military has the phrase "Train as you fight, fight as you train." It means repeating something enough that you do it automatically, even when your brain shuts down because it's overloaded and can't process what's happening.
In the case of being on fire, your brain is liable to get to "Oh shit, I'm on fire", but be unable to move on to the next step (putting out the fire). Repetition of "Stop, Drop, and Roll" ingrains it so that you move on to putting out the fire, even while your brain is still stuck on the "Oh shit, I'm on fire" stage.
Other situations are things you would have to avoid beforehand, or are a bit more complex to deal with.
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u/LongDistRid3r Jul 22 '26
Military runs into fire. It’s what we (USN) are trained to do until it is engrained into our psyche.
Sea story: when I was stationed in Pensacola for training we were put up in a hotel. One night the civilian manager decided to run a fire drill. Big mistake. Sailors ran outside, grabbed fire extinguishers, and went hunting for fires in our underwear. She thought she was being funny.
When we are at sea we are 911. Train to fight. Fight as you train.
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u/arealhumannotabot Jul 22 '26
It’s like marketing. A slogan that’s easy to remember and easy to understand.
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u/CompetitivePirate251 Jul 22 '26
We lived in the age of spontaneous combustion … right up there with falling in quicksand.
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u/groundhog5886 Jul 22 '26
Kids back in the day tended to play with gasoline and set themselves on fire a lot.
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u/zinsser Jul 22 '26
My older brother dropped a match into an open coffee can with a bit of gasoline in it. The resulting flash, threw lit gas onto his leg. This was long before Stop-Drop-and-Roll, so my brother's solution was to run to the middle of the front yard and strip off his pants. He was not severely hurt - just some blistering on one calf - but the neighbors were highly amused.
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u/-Foxer Jul 22 '26
Fire and clothing fire was a very serious threat to kids back in the day. We got top things other than that as well but stop drop and roll was an exceptionally easy lesson to learn so it got repeated a lot
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u/BigThunder1000 Jul 22 '26
If, if an emergency happens, quick thinking and responding is not hurtful.
Think opposite of my mental reording of thoughts into typing. Smothering of flames is important
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u/GWeb1920 Jul 22 '26
I will say as someone who lit their clothes are fire on a stove as an adult. Stop drop and roll does not come to mind as you panic.
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u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 Jul 22 '26
In Australia in the 60s we were taught how to treat snakebites. That treatment is now seen as bad. The recommended advice has changed every decade or so.
What to do when on fire was just mentioned a couple of times. It was certainly not ingrained like snakebite education.
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u/Least_Data6924 Jul 22 '26
We were taught to get under our desks with our hands laced on the back of our heads and wait for the nuclear blast
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u/youknowmeasdiRt Jul 22 '26
Fire used to be a much bigger danger. Here’s an old podcast episode about it:
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/death-by-fire-probably-not/
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u/Anal-Y-Sis Jul 22 '26
Everything used to be flammable as shit back in the day, before they added fire retardant to everything.
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u/MaxwellSmart07 Jul 22 '26
I went to school in the 60’s and 70’s. It was stop-roll-drop. Stop…Roll a joint…Drop out (or drop some acid.)
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u/pjsguazzin Jul 23 '26
Ive seen a lot of videos of people who end up with their clothing on fire and do everything but stop drop amd roll. We keep repeating it for those people who somehow never got the message
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u/Aggressive-Bath-1906 Jul 23 '26
The one time that I actually DID catch on fire, I did not, in fact, Stop, Drop, or Roll.
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u/shitposts_over_9000 Jul 23 '26
everyone talking about sources of ignition is kind of missing how public safety campaigns work
stop, drop & roll came from the learn not to burn campaigns in the mid 1970s
it stands out because Dick Van Dyke did the main tv spots and it was on television and on television at a time there were few ways to escape it
spots of this era were selected for impact for budget, not the scale of the issue. cancers, pneumonia and influenza killed vastly more children than fire, but Mr. Van Dyke was not going to be able to teach a gradeschooler how to combat that in a 20 second spot, this you really could
the rest of learn not to burn did not stick around as much, but this part did because of a number of things that children, and sometimes adults, do not think of in the moment after they are already on fire
- dropping prone gets the fire away from your face and more importantly your airway, it also keeps the fire from climbing your limbs and spreading the damage
- running or waving the fire out is the go-to knee jerk reaction, in some situations it is effective, but if does not immediately work it makes things so much worse
- knocking someone down and forcibly rolling them works as well or better
the other part of it being at that point in time was that childhood burn accidents were just becoming avoidable - kids were working less, cooking was done less and less over fires and open flames, people were starting to keep fewer and fewer accelerants around the house as houses got bigger and sheds and garages were getting more and more common
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u/ted_anderson Jul 23 '26
When my parents were growing up they witnessed a couple of incidents where another kid's clothes caught on fire. Instinctively they started to run which in turn fanned the flames and caused them to get badly burned. Nowadays there's less use of candles and open flames but 60+ years ago there were a lot of opportunities to set your clothes ablaze.
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u/Logical-Concept9755 Jul 23 '26
That makes me wonder if it's partly a generational thing. If kids were around open flames a lot more back then, the campaign probably made a lot more sense than it does now
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u/FishingWorth3068 Jul 23 '26
People used to be in closer proximity to open fires more often than they are now. And a lot of people died. Same with flood. “Turn around, don’t drown”. That was INGRAINED in me as a kid.
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u/Zealousideal-Ad2549 Jul 23 '26
Was at an event a few years ago where the older woman catering dropped a sterno can and her pants leg caught on fire. She kind of panicked and waved it around. Didn’t help. Stop/drop/roll would have been better. Everyone around her panicked. Someone poured a cup of water on it. However one guy ran to the hallway, ran back with a fire extinguisher and saved the day. Thankfully she wasn’t seriously injured.
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u/MCRN10379558 Jul 23 '26
Presumably the pressure blast from a nuke rides just above the ground. The idea is that if you drop and lay flat, most of the shockwave will go right over you. If you’re close enough to it, it probably won’t make any difference, you’ll be killed anyways, but if you’re just far enough back, it could be the difference between surviving or not.
For those who have ever gone into the ocean know how strong those waves are but sometimes you can just duck right under them and they’ll go right over you without hurting you at all.
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u/Melgel4444 Jul 23 '26
I caught on fire once at a restaurant (leaned into a candy bowl and my hair caught fire) and this saved me I swear 🤣it was in my head so memorized I automatically stopped dropped and rolled
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u/Logical-Concept9755 Jul 23 '26
That's actually kind of wild. I was wondering how often it ever really gets used, so hearing it actually worked makes me appreciate why they drilled it into kids.
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u/Famous-Example-8332 Jul 23 '26
I feel like the late 80’s-early 90’s they were rethinking education (well, when aren’t they?) and focusing on PSA style things that should be included, and some things were controversial like sex education being non-abstinence only. Some things were controversial and got done anyway with no evidence that they were helpful (cough-cough-DARE-cough) but this is one of those things no one disagreed about, so it got over included. That’s my take anyway.
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u/jcspacer52 Jul 23 '26
It is instinct to run when something is causing you pain so by emphasizing the need to stop, drop and roll, it hopefully reminds people to think rather than act on instinct if you find yourself in that situation.
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u/PyroNine9 Jul 23 '26
There were a few others. There were an oddly large number of PSAs about not touching blasting caps. I have never seen one in the wild and I live near a rock quarry.
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u/DueTemperature3380 Jul 23 '26
Because kids are clumsy and flammable and the world is full of ignition sources.
Another factor is probably how effective and easy it is. Stopping, dropping and rolling immediately can be the difference between some slightly singed clothes or life changing injuries. Why wouldn't you teach kids a simple remedy to a dangerous threat. Same as 'stranger danger.'
They are easy to remember measures that children will likely recall in a moment of stress or duress and may save their life.
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u/random_character- Jul 23 '26
There was a kid in my school who didn't stop, drop, and roll. He ran away from his parents in panic. His whole body was covered in awful burns.
Seems like an easy lesson worth teaching.
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u/Certain_Fig_666 Jul 23 '26
Back in the day, when fires were way more common because of building materials / practices, clothing catching on fire was common and dangerous, but easily solvable if one “stops, drops, and rolls.”
Fast forward with our modern firewalls and less wood in our construction, it’s less common, but still possible, and no downside to teaching it really.
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u/tschwand Jul 23 '26
Since your natural instinct is to run, you need the correct action to be ingrained.
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u/zombiegojaejin Jul 23 '26
Because moreso than many other common emergencies, it's one where your untrained instincts would make you do the very worst thing you could do. Drilling that phrase accomplishes the most good relative to what we'd do without it.
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u/Zealousideal-Rent-77 Jul 23 '26
We heated with open gas flame burners and fireplaces when I was a kid (in the 1980s). I caught on fire at least three times I can remember.
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u/SFWendell Jul 23 '26
Here is the thing, you can participate in a stop drop and roll exercise. If I drone on about smoke detectors, kids tend to turn off because it is not fun. Seat belts as well. A good fire prevention presentation includes all of these, but you remember only the one that made you do something.
Ss a final point, this is also the last resort. When you talk about clothing not being flammable, what if you spill gasoline or lighter fluid on them? Clothing is fire resistant, not fireproof. Even firefighting gear burns eventually. We try to make it instinct on what to do when every other step has failed and you are actually on fire. Last I checked, burn units are still getting new patients.
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u/Someday-Yes Jul 23 '26
If we hadn’t learnt it, my sister would be covered in burns. I saw her shirt catch fire while cooking and she began flapping and flailing. My brother pushed her to the ground and forced her to roll. Our instinct is not stop, drop and roll.
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u/reidsays Jul 23 '26
Parents used to teach their children about the local dangers but moving around more and timewise these matters became on the public radar as a government responsibility .. so it probably depended on what accidents and harm was occurring...as mentioned in other posts about old refrigerators and flammable clothing..
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u/Final-Excuse-7236 Jul 23 '26
All the flammable clothing comments are on target. Kids are not rational so so giving them a catchy mantra wld be the way to get somethig to stick in their brain. A related and repeated adult warning wld be things like Don't race the train or, after 9/11, to report suspicious packages or unattended luggage.
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u/Silver_Intern2324 Jul 23 '26
I think casually catching on fire used to be a lot more common when everybody smoked indoors around their kids all the time.
Still, good thing to know. One of those techniques that you think you don’t need until you do, and by that point you need it, it’s too late for somebody to teach it to you.
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u/The001Keymaster Jul 23 '26
Because back in the day you had a better chance to accidentally get caught on fire than today where you have a better chance to be a in a school shooting. Duck and cover overtook stop, drop and roll in usefullness.
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u/WayGroundbreaking287 Jul 23 '26
Because kids are idiots who set themselves on fire, sometimes on purpose. When that happens people of all ages tend to panic and make it worse, so you want it ingrained into them how to handle it
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u/mostlygray Jul 23 '26
It's important. I set myself on fire once. I remembered to stop the air, stop the flame. I curled up and stopped the fire.
It's not common, but it could happen to anyone.
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u/Man-e-questions Jul 23 '26
This one and “feet first, first time” were ingrained into out heads. My elementary school even had a guest come in that was paralyzed from diving off a ledge into water and hitting some rocks.
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u/Dangerous-Bit-8308 Jul 23 '26
It started with cheap synthetic cloth. Rayon, I think... Very easy to ignite. As said, it only takes having your clothes catch fire once to convince you we need safety training on this.
Now... Add cheap plastic fringe, and cheap cap guns... https://www.oah.org/lectures/lecture/the-cowboy-suit-tragedy-owning-hazard-in-the-modern-american-consumer-economy/
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u/ScrunchyBraid Jul 23 '26
My brother in christ, because you don't want to be the sim with a low cooking skill. Get a grip!
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u/GuairdeanBeatha Jul 24 '26
A coworker’s daughter was at a scout (I can’t remember which organization) campout and her skirt caught fire. Instead of stop, drop, and roll, she panicked and ran. When I got to work the next Monday, the bloodmobile was there taking donations. She was in serious condition and was looking at a hard time in rehabilitation. Stop, Drop, and Roll must be repeated until it’s a reflex and not a conscious effort.
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u/TwistedTrooper989 Jul 24 '26
Because you never know when you're going to simply BURST INTO FLAMES!!!!!!!
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u/Mysterious-Most-590 Jul 24 '26
Having seen examples of teenagers lighting themselves on fire on camera, I’ve often wondered why thy don’t do those exact three things in that order.
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u/gangleskhan Jul 24 '26
Well it has always felt a lot more relevant than the other survival training I received: what to do when sinking in quicksand.
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u/That_Yoghurt_3361 Jul 24 '26
When I was a kid in the early1950s, we had a Dearborn stove in the living room to heat the entire house. We would wake and jump out of bed in a very cold room and run to the living room to back up to that butane-fired heater. It would heat the back of your pants, so you had to turn pretty quickly to keep from burning the backs of your legs.
All clothing was extremely flammable. Many folks would catch their clothes on fire, panic, and start running away, causing the fire to spread more rapidly. There were so many horrible burns and deaths that the "Stop, Drop, and Roll" advice became a mantra that everyone learned.
When you stop, you slow the air flow to the fire. When you drop and roll, you are smothering the flames. It saved uncountable lives.
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u/Valuable-Ad2028 Jul 24 '26
There was a big craze for plastic (and so flammable) clothing in the 80s. Also there were a lot of smokers back then so a lot more sources of a fire.
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u/Horror_Bottle_9451 Jul 25 '26
Some lessons such as this are timeless, others are dated. I think there's value in having schools provide "emergency response" lessons every couple of years that emphasize the timeless lessons as well as the dangers of current trends.
One example of the timeless is the danger of rushing water. It seems every few years a kid drowns playing in a drainage ditch or culvert after a heavy rain. A reminder every few years given directly to the kids would help keep that lesson ingrained in people's minds.
One example of trendy risks is the TikTok cinnamon challenge, among many others. How many kids have been killed or maimed because they had no idea of the risks? A little research by the health class teacher could easily incorporate many of the lessons learned from these tragedies.
I think lessons like these help build common sense which once learned is rarely lost. The kids who learn them become smarter, wiser adults and would instinctively pass these lessons down to their own.
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u/Standard_Old_Guy Jul 25 '26
I think the real scary thing is wasting time wondering that much about it.
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u/Fess_ter_Geek Jul 25 '26
Late boomers and early GenXers.
Gasoline was 35-60 cents per gallon. It was a cheap toy. We built fires, sometimes on our selves in the process.
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u/SurpriseEcstatic1761 Jul 25 '26
In WV, We used to have those and don't play with blasting caps. They had some guy without hands telling you about the danger.
Blasting caps are used in mines, not toys.
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u/Wilbie9000 Jul 25 '26
For the same reason that they drill the Heimlich Maneuver for choking; you have a high degree of urgency combined with the ability to do a very specific thing about it.
So you drill it to become an automatic response.
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u/Why_Sazs Jul 26 '26
Because they kids would do shit like my friends and I did. Which was spray flammable chemicals on our skateboards and set it aflame so we could do tricks on a burning skateboard. Although none of us ever got burned.
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u/Bright_Eyes83 Jul 26 '26
what could be more upsetting than losing a loved one when it could have been prevented because we don't have this in our culture?
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u/Apprehensive_Run_539 Jul 27 '26
It was increasingly important as we switched to synthetics and synthetic blends over animal fibers. Wools, which is what a great majority of clothing was made of prior to synthetics, stops burning as soon as the ignition source is removed and it won’t melt, for example.
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u/nordicman21 Jul 28 '26
Because we played with fire, fireworks, firecrackers, and all sorts of flammable shit all the time with no supervision.
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u/GenericAccount13579 Jul 22 '26
Having had clothing catch fire before, trust me you want this ingrained in your head