The association between smoke alarm presence and injury and death rates: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Rohde, David; Corcoran, Jonathan; Sydes, Michelle; Higginson, Angela

doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2016.01.008

Cited by 30 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…[8]. Another study analyzed the effectiveness of smoke alarm presence and found that death rates are halved when smoke alarms are present [9]. While these studies supply useful information at the macro-scale of fire risk analysis to help inform and improve fire safety, they do not analyze individual fire risk and the timelines for occupant tenability that can inform firefighters in their risk/benefit analysis when determining best approaches to rescue occupants from structures.…”

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confidence: 99%

Occupant Tenability in Single Family Homes: Part I—Impact of Structure Type, Fire Location and Interior Doors Prior to Fire Department Arrival

et al. 2017

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Abstract. This paper describes an experimental investigation of the impact of structure geometry, fire location, and closed interior doors on occupant tenability in typical single family house geometries using common fuels from twenty-first century fires. Two houses were constructed inside a large fire facility; a one-story, 112 m 2 , 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom house with 8 total rooms, and a two-story 297 m 2 , 4-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house with 12 total rooms. Seventeen experiments were conducted with varying fire locations. In all scenarios, two bedrooms had doors remaining open while the door remained closed in a third bedroom immediately adjacent to the open door bedrooms. Temperature and gas measurement at the approximate location of a crawling or crouching trapped occupant (0.9 m from the floor) were utilized with the ISO 13571 fractional effective dose (FED) methodology to characterize occupant tenability up to the point of firefighter intervention. The FED values for the fire room were higher for heat exposure than for toxic gases, while target rooms reached highest FED due to CO/CO 2 exposure. The closed interior door decreased FED significantly, with the worst case scenario resulting in a 2% probability of receiving an incapacitating dose compared to the worst case scenario for an open bedroom of 93% probability of receiving an incapacitating dose. In fact, in 7 of the 17 experiments, the closed interior door resulted in a less than 0.1% chance of an occupant receiving an incapacitating dose prior to firefighter 'intervention.'

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confidence: 99%

Occupant Tenability in Single Family Homes: Part I—Impact of Structure Type, Fire Location and Interior Doors Prior to Fire Department Arrival

et al. 2017

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“…Not surprisingly perhaps, Figure 10 also shows that the occurrence rate of fatal fires remains much the same in those cases where residential fire alarms were installed but did not operate despite the installation. The decreasing effect in the number of fire fatalities by residential fire alarms can be referred to be roughly half as noted by David Rohde et al [1], introduced in the previous section. In addition, if the aforementioned data for fires in living rooms and bedrooms and fires in kitchens are aggregated, the occurrence rate of fatal fires to the total was 47.5% smaller in the cases where there was a residential fire alarm and it activated compared with the cases of no installation of residential fire alarms.…”

Section: Effect For Fire Death Reduction By Residential Fire Alarmsmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…The previous studies related to the main targets of our study can be divided into three groups such as (1) statistical analysis on response behavior and the effects of existence of working smoke detectors on casualties reduction [1][2][3][4], (2) specific descriptive studies of human behavior in case of fire based on interviews and the like with persons who survived the fire [5][6][7][8], and (3) experimental studies and literature review of related papers on the relation between sound of residential fire alarm and arousal of persons [9,10]. Furthermore, the fire statistics reports of each country [11,12] are also considered as those in the group (1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a representative one of the studies in the first group, David Rohde et al [1] collected a number of past studies that contain statistical analysis on the relationship between the presence of residential fire alarms and the occurrence of casualties. They examined the many facets by meta-analysis based on the documents, especially the data by Marty Ahrens [2] and the unpublished raw data on fire incidents by the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service in Australia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analysis of response behavior of people in fire incidents where residential fire alarms successfully worked

Sekizawa

Mizuno

2017

Fire and Materials

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Summary All residential homes in Japan have been required to install residential fire alarms since 2006. According to a survey by Tokyo Fire Department in 2011, the installation rate of residential fire alarms per household within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo Fire Department is 80.6%. The authors carried out an analysis of reports of cases, where residential fire alarms successfully worked. The information in these real fire incident reports is very useful for us to understand the actual circumstances as well as the behavior of the people involved in and nearby a fire incident. In many cases of successful activation of fire alarms for fires originating in a living room and bedroom, the occupants were likely to be in sleeping in the room of fire origin and did not become aware of the fire alarm, even if it sounded. By contrast, other family members and/or neighbors outside the room of fire origin were more likely to hear the sound and initiated the response activity to the fire incident. This indicates the potential for persons in the room of fire origin at the time of fire to be saved by others nearby because of the activation of residential fire alarms, even if they are sleeping and do not respond by themselves to the alarm sound. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…1 In the event of a fire, smoke alarms reduce the risk of fatality by half. 2 Nevertheless, although a large majority of homes have at least one smoke alarm, only a minority are adequately protected by functioning alarms on every level. 3–4 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of Participation in a Fire Department Community Canvassing Program

Debinski

McDonald

Frattaroli

et al. 2017

Journal of Burn Care & Research

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Objective An urban fire department has been distributing free smoke alarms for over 30 years. A community-academic partnership was developed to conduct a community intervention trial as part of the fire department’s home visiting program. The trial comprised 170 canvassing events held across 12 census tracts; half of the census tracts were assigned to the treatment condition and received pre-promotion of the home visit events. The objectives of this analysis were to identify environmental and programmatic predictors of: 1) whether someone would be at home at the time of a visit, and 2) if at home, whether the resident would participate. Methods A separate multi-level analysis was conducted to address each objective. The canvassing event served as the first level to account for variation in implementation of the program, with the census tract as the second level. All environmental and program characteristics were included as fixed effects in both models. Results Throughout 170 events, 8080 eligible residential addresses were visited, of which 3216 had someone at home, and 2197 homes participated in the program. Canvassing events held on weekends and during the evening hours was associated with higher odds of a resident being at home. Canvassing events without rain and held in the treatment census tract areas was associated with higher odds of resident participation. Conclusion Environmental and programmatic factors can impact the reach of home visiting programs. These findings can contribute to emerging best practices for fire department home visiting programs.

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The association between smoke alarm presence and injury and death rates: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Cited by 30 publications

References 14 publications

Occupant Tenability in Single Family Homes: Part I—Impact of Structure Type, Fire Location and Interior Doors Prior to Fire Department Arrival

Occupant Tenability in Single Family Homes: Part I—Impact of Structure Type, Fire Location and Interior Doors Prior to Fire Department Arrival

Analysis of response behavior of people in fire incidents where residential fire alarms successfully worked

Predictors of Participation in a Fire Department Community Canvassing Program

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