Comparative investigation of ‘survival’ and fatality factors in accidental residential fires

Xiong, Lin; Bruck, Dorothy; Ball, Michelle

doi:10.1016/j.firesaf.2015.02.003

Cited by 57 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Of the 11 included studies,12–16 28–33 5 were case–control designs,12 13 29 30 33 2 were cross-sectional31 32 and 4 were classified by the review authors as statistical analyses of routinely collected data 14–16 28. Ten of the included studies were published papers12–16 28–30 32 33 and one was an unpublished thesis 31.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ten of the included studies were published papers12–16 28–30 32 33 and one was an unpublished thesis 31. Seven studies were conducted in the USA,12–14 16 28 30 32 two in Australia,31 33 one in the UK15 and one in Canada 29.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seven studies were conducted in the USA,12–14 16 28 30 32 two in Australia,31 33 one in the UK15 and one in Canada 29. Risk factors for several house fire outcomes were investigated, including: FRS attended and unattended house fire incidents,31 32 FRS attended incidents only,12 15 29 cigarette initiated incidents only,30 fire related injuries and fatalities combined12 15 16 28 and fatalities only 13 14 33. Readers should refer to the online supplementary file S1 for summary characteristics of the included studies, and online appendix 1 in supplementary file S2 for an overview of biases identified by the review authors.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Risk factors associated with unintentional house fire incidents, injuries and deaths in high-income countries: a systematic review

et al. 2017

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This best evidence synthesis indicates that several resident and property characteristics are associated with risk of experiencing house fire incidents, injuries or death. These findings should be considered by the Fire and Rescue Services and others with a role in fire prevention. Future research should adopt robust, standardised study designs to permit meta-analyses and enable stronger conclusions to be drawn.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Risk factors associated with unintentional house fire incidents, injuries and deaths in high-income countries: a systematic review

et al. 2017

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“…Bruck et al [1] reported that more than half of the adults (58%) who died in unintentional residential fires and were tested for alcohol recorded a positive BAC. Xiong et al [21] found that a third of the adults (24.8%) who died in accidental residential fires and were tested for drugs had consumed psychotropic and sedative drugs prior to the fire. The present less important relationships between these risk behaviours and survived fires can be partly attributed to the fact that only a small proportion of people interviewed reported that they had engaged in these risky behaviours, with most of them reporting to be awake and unimpaired at ignition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, fatal fires were more likely to have been caused by smoking, with adults over 50 years of age being at the highest risk [4,6]. By contrast, cooking has historically found to be the leading cause of most survived fires, in particular those that were extinguished without fire department assistance, and people aged [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] are twice as likely to be injured than the general public of all other ages [4,7]. These etiological differences between fatal and survived fires motivated the design of this study that aims to utilize the key concepts, human-agent-environment, of the Haddon Matrix to clearly organise relevant factors (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Utilization of the Haddon Matrix to Organize Factors of Survived Accidental Residential Fires: Frequencies for Human, Agent, and Environment-related Variables

Xiong¹,

Ball²,

Bruck³

2014

Fire Saf. Sci.

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Drawing upon interviews of 183 people who have survived accidental residential fires, this study adopted the basic concepts (human, agent, environment) of the Haddon Matrix to organize factors associated with survived accidental residential fires where there was no fire death or serious injury with extended hospitalization involved. Human activities during a fire were also identified, including how people first alerted to the presence of a fire and how they attempted to extinguish a fire. Electrical failure and unattended cooking were found to be the leading causes of survived fires. Kitchens and bedrooms were reported as the main rooms of fire origin. The study revealed four important new findings. These new findings are: 1) people's knowledge of fire safety and awareness of unsafe fire behaviours was extremely limited; 2) an overwhelming majority of hosts had previous fire experiences at the time of the survey; 3) risk factors that are documented elsewhere to be highly related to fire fatalities were found not to be closely related to survived fires, such as alcohol, drugs, smoking, and being asleep; and 4) the majority of hosts took proactive actions when facing a fire, such as calling fire brigade, attempting to extinguish a fire, and trying to alert others. The Haddon Matrix was found to be a useful tool for organizing a wide range of relevant accidental residential fire variables, with the current paper presenting important new information about the frequencies of such variables where no fire death or serious injury has occurred.

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Preventing accidental residential fires: the role of human involvement in non‐injury house fires

2016

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SUMMARYResearch to date has focused on causal descriptions of residential fire fatalities and injuries, with an emphasis on ignition factor. This paper examines if, how and why human actions or inactions lead to accidental residential fires and identifies the risk factors most closely associated with those fires caused by human unsafe behaviours. Interviews of 182 people who had survived accidental residential fires without serious injury were conducted. Each fire was classified as either of the following: (1) directly caused by human unsafe behaviours; (2) directly caused by human long-term inactions; or (3) involved no human actions. Frequencies and odds ratio values were presented. Slightly less than half (46%) of the non-injury fires were directly caused by human unsafe behaviours, 40% involved no human actions and 14% were associated with long-term human inactions. Examination of the fires caused by human unsafe behaviours compared with no human involvement using odds ratios showed that individuals in the former group were significantly more likely to be mentally ill, physically disabled, asleep, not in full-time paid employment and more intimate with ignition. Many non-injury fires do not directly arise from unsafe activity, and most of them were caused by electrical or ignition system failure. New design innovations and/or improvements in appliances may reduce those fires due to appliance maintenance negligence or electrical faults. Identification of the most high-risk individuals for unsafe behaviours can help inform fire safety educational programmes. Copyright

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Comparative investigation of ‘survival’ and fatality factors in accidental residential fires

Cited by 57 publications

References 25 publications

Risk factors associated with unintentional house fire incidents, injuries and deaths in high-income countries: a systematic review

Risk factors associated with unintentional house fire incidents, injuries and deaths in high-income countries: a systematic review

Utilization of the Haddon Matrix to Organize Factors of Survived Accidental Residential Fires: Frequencies for Human, Agent, and Environment-related Variables

Preventing accidental residential fires: the role of human involvement in non‐injury house fires

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