Reducing the risk of fire in buildings and communities :

Abstract

The burden of fire on the U.S. economy is significant, comprising approximately $310 billion annually, or about 2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Over the last 30 years, the number of reported fires, and the number of civilian fire deaths and injuries have decreased due to the efforts of many organizations. On the other hand, the number of civilian deaths and injuries normalized by the number of reported fires has essentially remained flat, while the number of firefighter injuries and fatalities has significantly increased on a per fire basis. Furthermore, the cost of fire protection has increased, and new and potentially costly threats to fire safety are emerging. Consequently, now is an appropriate time to address this continuing problem and consider how best to impel consistent and significant reductions in overall fire losses and costs. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed this Roadmap as a response to the national fire problem.This roadmap was developed to provide a shared vision for communication, bring the limited available resources to bear on the U.S. fire burden in a focused and creative manner for enhanced effectiveness, establish a basis for NIST strategic planning, and identify gaps in knowledge and measurement science that hinder the development of critical enabling technologies.NIST's long-term vision is that unwanted fire be removed as a limitation to life safety, technical innovation, and economic prosperity in the United States. To realize this vision, the long-term goal of the Reduced Risk of Fire in Buildings and Communities Strategy is to develop and demonstrate the measurement science that enables a one-third reduction in the nation's preventable fire burden, reducing the impact of fire on communities, structures, their occupants, the fire service, and the economy within a generation. The estimated value of the preventable fire burden is about one-third of the total U.S. fire burden.The preventable fire burden is considered in terms of life safety and societal costs. At the highest level, the problem is analyzed in three parts: fire hazards in buildings, challenges faced by the fire service, and fire spread in wildland-urban interface communities. A series of approaches are proposed to attack problems in each of these three application areas. This roadmap addresses the following questions:• What are the most pressing fire problems?• What are the best ways to attack these problems and reduce the overall U.S. fire burden?In addition, the roadmap addresses more operationally precise questions:• What measurement science is needed to realize the vision of a fire-safe future?• What technologies are needed to most quickly reduce the national fire burden?• What are the metrics to ensure that progress is being achieved?From the answers to these questions, based on input from NIST staff and stakeholders nationwide, a set of strategic research priorities are developed. vi

Design of smoke detection system using deep learning and sensor fusion with recursive feature elimination cross-validation

“…The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates at least 300,000 deaths due to accidents caused by burns, with 95% of these accidents originating from low-and middle-income countries [1]. Fires are dominated by residential and office areas, with the most significant cause of non-fatal fires caused by cooking activities, namely 45%, and the most significant cause of fatal fires caused by smoking activities, namely 16% [2].…”