A Guide to the Best Fire Escape Ladders

We recommend the Kidde KL-2S Fire Escape Ladder for escaping your multi-level home or apartment through a window safely. It’s easy to use, well constructed, and affordable.

You have an average of two minutes to escape before smoke and flames engulf the entire house. Having a window-escape ladder in place is one way to ensure that you and your loved ones can escape quickly and safely from a home fire. Many ladders that are offered online are not safe because they use ropes or chains that can tangle or burn or pinch hands. Others are by sketchy brands. We’ve researched the best emergency escape ladders to bring you the best.

In addition to an anti-slip, zinc-plated rung design that provides stability for children or older family members, it also attaches to windows easily, making it perfect for a fast exit. We also love the Kidde escape ladder’s tangle-free design.

This affordable safety ladder comes with a five-year limited warranty, which is pretty standard. We would have liked to see a warranty more like the ladder that places second on our list (15 years).

It’s also easy to deploy. It hooks onto the window seal and unfolds itself so you can get out quickly.

The one thing we didn’t really like is the steps. The steps are narrow and slippery. This makes the emergency ladder less stable as you climb down it. Thicker straps and wider steps, like the ones on the Kidde escape ladder, would have been better.

ISOP also comes with slip-resistant resin rungs and thick ropes that won’t tangle or hurt your hands. It can also support over 2,000 pounds, so it’s the heavy-duty ladder on our list.

We didn’t like the warranty, though. Other ladders on this list have their warranty information readily available online, and five years or more is the standard. ISOP has a warranty of only one year.

This ladder came close to making our top-pick list.

The Hausse Retractable Fire Escape Ladder has a similar construction to our top pick, but we just couldn’t recommend it for one big reason. It’s retractable, which means you need to fiddle around with the ladder’s hooks to get it to extend fully before you attach it to a window sill. These few seconds can mean the difference between getting out safely and not getting out at all.

An emergency window escape ladder only works if you can access it easily and all your family members can use it safely. Here are some factors to consider while comparing your options:

• Height: Match your home’s height. Choose 13 to 15 feet for two-story homes and 20 to 25 feet for three-story homes.
• Ladder weight: Find a ladder that’s lightweight and compact so you can move and store it with ease.
• Weight supported: Look for a ladder rated to carry at least 1,000 pounds so multiple family members can use it at the same time.
• Anti-slip: Make sure the ladder has anti-slip features for children or older household members with mobility restrictions.

An emergency escape ladder may be awkward to use, so test it out before an emergency. Once you’re done shopping for safety ladders, test it in its intended window. Have each family member place the ladder out the window and climb out. Think of it as a mini fire drill.

When storing a portable window escape ladder, keep it folded up in a box. Always place the ladder or the box near the window where you intend to use it.

We found that the Kidde KL-2S Fire Escape Ladder checked all of our boxes for the best fire escape ladder. It’s fast, strong, and affordable. While no fire safety product is guaranteed to save your life during a fire, we think this ladder will be your safest emergency exit option from a multi-level home or apartment through an escape window. 

To learn more about fire safety and prevention, visit our Home Fire Safety Guide.

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For this fire escape ladder review, we scoured hundreds of reviews from users and ratings on various websites. We also used our decades of experience as safety experts, and experience as a volunteer firefighter, to evaluate how well each product would work in a real-life fire emergency.

Here are some features we prioritized when reviewing fire ladders:

• Slip-resistant rungs
• Wide ladder rungs
• Chain- and rope-free design
• Simple ladder hooks
• Weight capacity

For more on how we review products, take a look at our SafeWise methodology page.

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