Remember that, to avoid smoke, you may have to crawl to the sliderafts.
If you get smoke in your eyes they will snap shut and may refuse to open again.
A lungful of smoke may incapacitate you.
Add aisles obstructed with baggage which forces you up into smoke and I think you can see the difficulty.
In forty years of flying, I never had so much as a little smoke in the cabin and remember, when the outside humidity is high, you may see condensed water vapour coming from the vents. Looks like smoke but isn't.
I don't wish to alarm anyone unduly but, in a situation like the following, baggage is not important:
Keep flying; my pension needs you 