An Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding Elderly Dwelling Fire Fatalities and the Barriers to Implementing Fire Safety Strategies among this Group

Abstract

Examination of real-fire data has indicated that, globally, the elderly, particularly elderly males are those most at risk of becoming a dwelling fire fatality. This paper presents an analysis of the circumstances surrounding elderly dwelling fire fatalities gleaned from coronial reports. The analysis indicated that many elderly fatalities were involved in ignition and had existing health conditions that played a role in the fire. The most common fire scenario (which started in home furnishing located in the living room by carelessly discarded smokers' materials) accounted for a quarter of elderly fatalities. The risk factors associated with elderly fatalities were similar to other adult fatalities. However, there were some statistically significant differences. The elderly were less likely to have alcohol play a role in their death, more likely to be involved in fires where their clothing was the seat of the fire, have physical illness play a role, and have burn injuries as their primary cause of death. The fire risk to elderly householders was frequently identified by members of the community; however, many felt it was inappropriate to intervene to negate the risk although there were some examples of fatalities that occurred even where fire safety measures had subsequently been adopted. The most concerning result from this study is the minimal attention given to how elderly householders, especially those with poor mobility, would escape in the event of a fire.

Household Fire Protection Practices in Relation to Socio-demographic Characteristics: Evidence from a Swedish National Survey

“…If this is the case, i.e. that the reduced protection amongst older adults is the result of physical and mental aspects rather than attitude or risk perception, the interventions required to increase the resilience towards residential fires will likely differ between younger and older age groups as well as requiring more innovative solutions for older adults [55].…”

“…For older adults this may be particularly important, especially in regards to societal factors such as loneliness, social exclusion and financial difficulties. Such aspects have been highlighted as important to include in prevention programmes [55] given that they have also been shown to increase risk behaviour [61,62]. Therefore, whilst holistic, multi-facetted programs are required for all groups with low levels of prevention, it would seem unreasonable to suggest that the same interventions are suitable for all groups.…”

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

“…The fire was suppressed by the fire brigade. 4 An electric space heater, which was kept switched on, was overturned (cause unknown) and a fire broke out.…”

“…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).…”

“…From the results, they pointed out that the existence of working smoke detectors has an effect in reducing the probability of fire deaths roughly by half. In the meantime, Amy Harpur et al [4] presented an analysis of the circumstances surrounding elderly dwelling fire fatalities based on coronial reports. They pointed that the elderly people are more likely to be killed by fire even with the existence of working fire alarms compared with other adults, but this is often relating to their poor mobility and illness condition in the event of a fire.…”