Strobe lights versus auditory smoke alarm signals: Effectiveness for waking up selected populations

Bruck, Dorothy; Thomas, Ian

doi:10.1080/03033910.2009.10446296

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The NFPA also responded to the growing body of literature showing that strobe lights were not very effective for waking a range of populations, including those with normal hearing [16], the alcohol impaired or hard of hearing [17] and the profoundly hearing impaired or deaf [18]. In June 2009 they mandated that tactile alarms (i.e.…”

Section: Waking Effectivenessmentioning

confidence: 92%

Interactions Between Human Behaviour and Technology: Implications for Fire Safety Science

Bruck

Thomas

2010

Fire Technol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Here we present a number of studies showing how human behaviour may influence the effectiveness of fire safety equipment. The paper initially focuses on smoke alarms and first reviews studies on the waking effectiveness of smoke alarms, including the increased waking effectiveness of a low frequency 520 Hz square wave. Section 2.2 presents research on the impact of changes in the open or shut status of doors and windows on alarm performance. When all doors were closed, the average alarm volume in other rooms fell to a mere 36 dBA. Time for alarm activation by smoke was very strongly influenced by shutting interconnecting doors. The analysis in Sect. 2.3, using detailed coroner's files, suggests that for many fire fatalities a smoke alarm is likely to have been irrelevant to whether or not a person died in the fire. Part 3 presents research examining the use of fire extinguishers and fire blankets by older adults. Blanket use was more successful than the fire extinguisher, with 22% of participants unable to remove the fire extinguisher safety tag. We conclude that any new fire safety technologies or developments need to explicitly take into account human factors in their design. Further, consideration must be made about whether a new product is likely to be located, installed, available, maintained and/or appropriately used by the people who are most at risk. The paper closes with a discussion of some preventative strategies.

show abstract

Section: Waking Effectivenessmentioning

confidence: 92%

Interactions Between Human Behaviour and Technology: Implications for Fire Safety Science

Bruck

Thomas

2010

Fire Technol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The sounds used were the ~3100 Hz sound currently used in Australia in domestic smoke alarms and the 520 Hz square wave sound used in the testing of the ability of these and other sounds to arouse various groups of sleeping people from deep sleep [1][2][3][4][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. The ~3100 Hz sound is a quite pure tone while the 520 Hz square wave sound is a complex sound with intensity peaks at the fundamental frequency (520 Hz) and at the odd numbered harmonics of this frequency.…”

Section: Sound Level Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It can be seen from this summary that many of the occupants had characteristics that were likely to have severely affected their ability to respond to low level alarm sounds (we consider them to be particularly 'at risk'), and indeed many of them would be expected to require very loud alarm signals to be likely to respond when asleep [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hallway Smoke Alarms: Often Specified, How Effective?

Thomas¹,

Bruck²

2011

Fire Safety Science - Proceedings of the 10th International Sym

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Smoke alarms in hallways of dwellings are specified in many jurisdictions, sometimes in conjunction with others in other rooms, usually bedrooms. How effective are they compared with the same alarms in rooms but interconnected so that when one is activated they all sound? Smoke alarms have two major functionsreliable and rapid detection of smoke and reliable and effective warning of building occupants. Both functions were investigated in this project, along with an analysis of 128 accidental residential building fire fatalities which showed that many of them had characteristics likely to affect their ability to respond to low level alarm sounds. The project was conducted to help determine the most appropriate location(s) of smoke alarms in dwellings in Australia. The Australian Standard for emergency notification and many other standards specify a sound level of at least 75 dBA at the pillow. When an 85 dBA 3100 Hz smoke alarm sound was emitted in a hallway the measured sound level in the rooms with doors closed varied from 37.4-55.9 dBA. When the doors were open the levels varied from 40.0-74.8 dBA. Thus the maximum sound level in rooms due to hallway alarms was always below the 75 dBA recommended level and well below with the room doors closed. The time taken for a particular type of smoke alarm to activate (and the probability of it not activating at all) when in hallways was found to be significantly greater than the time taken for a similar smoke alarm to activate when in the room of fire origin (RFO). The RFO door being closed was also found to be very likely to prevent smoke alarms not in the RFO from activating. Overall, with the RFO door open hallway smoke alarms took some 200-300 s longer to activate than alarms in the RFO. The proportion of alarms that did not activate depended mostly on location but also on detector type. Taking into consideration the likely received sound level and the time and likelihood of alarm activation it is concluded that hallway smoke alarms are much less effective than interconnected smoke alarms in every room. It appears likely that if there were interconnected smoke alarms in every room in a dwelling the probability of an occupant being killed in the event of a fire would be much lower than in the same dwelling with only hallway smoke alarms.

show abstract

Editorial: Psychology and the Fire and RescueService

Brunsden

Hill

2009

The Irish Journal of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Strobe lights versus auditory smoke alarm signals: Effectiveness for waking up selected populations

Cited by 4 publications

References 5 publications

Interactions Between Human Behaviour and Technology: Implications for Fire Safety Science

Interactions Between Human Behaviour and Technology: Implications for Fire Safety Science

Hallway Smoke Alarms: Often Specified, How Effective?

Editorial: Psychology and the Fire and RescueService

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About