I heard fire escape ladders or rope ladders cannot be used to get out of your building window if the room directly below is on fire. I would imagine because the ladder then would catch fire? If that's true, what are other methods to safely get out of your window, if the window escape was your only option?
Fire escape ladder cannot be used if the floor (room) below is on fire
fire-hazardladder
Related Solutions
The distance the ladder base should be from the wall is 1/4 of the vertical height of the ladder contact point. The side load will be minimal. However with the ladder against the rafters it will be difficult to position the insulation and not have the ladder in the way.
You have to take into account a few factors:
extension ladders have an overlap that isn't shown in the nominal length - for example, a 16' extension ladder has two 8' sections, but fully extended is only 13' long.
the ladder will be used at an angle (usually a four to one pitch / 75 degrees) so the top of a 16' ladder won't even be at 13' in use
you don't want to stand on the top few rungs
some tasks take more ladder than others, if you're painting, you can reach up and work a little higher than the top of the ladder, but if you have to get on a roof, you need the ladder that extends well past the edge of the roof (usually about three feet)
Trig tells us the height of the top of a ladder tilted at 75 degrees will be .97 the length. For example, a 16' extension ladder (which is really 13' long extended) set up at a 4:1 / 75 degree pitch will touch a wall at about 12'7" (13' * .97).
This chart has all you need to know, no math:
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Best Answer
This is why every livable room is required to have at least two ways to exit room. If all paths are blocked, you then have to wait for the fire department to come with the ladder truck. Any other means will put you in greater dander.
Also it is not the ladder catching on fire that is the concern, but climbing through heat/fire/smoke that will make it impossible.