Preventing - Protecting - Responding

[johno67]

Some really good points.

If we have reached a plateau in reducing fire deaths, then we will have to look at new strategies.

Does anyone have any new ideas or know of any initiatives that are taking us in different directions?

What about linking the requirement for fire safety measures in housing to peoples right to claim benefits (not wishing to demonise any particular social group)?

I agree with Kurnal, we need to keep our eye on the zero fire deaths target. If our strategies aren't working efficiently at present we need to try something else.

[Tom Sutton]

If Stu has used fire statistics for his graph then he has used total fire deaths not domestic which is what CFS is all about. I know domestic fire deaths in the 1970’s was about 500 and reduced to minus 400 by the being of this century. A more meaningful graph would be to show all the domestic fire deaths over a long period and indicate any major initiatives during that period, like the introduction of Furniture Regs, Smoke Detector campaign and see if there is an area of a significant downward trend. Conversely look for downward trends and see if there is a reason for it.

I understand there is a report about the Smoke Detector campaign indicating its effectiveness.

[slubberdegullion]

If Stu has used fire statistics for his graph then he has used total fire deaths not domestic which is what CFS is all about. I know domestic fire deaths in the 1970’s was about 500 and reduced to minus 400 by the being of this century. A more meaningful graph would be to show all the domestic fire deaths over a long period and indicate any major initiatives during that period, like the introduction of Furniture Regs, Smoke Detector campaign and see if there is an area of a significant downward trend. Conversely look for downward trends and see if there is a reason for it.

I understand there is a report about the Smoke Detector campaign indicating its effectiveness.

My graph was only illustrative of trends, so don't try and read too much from it.

But you're right that the effectiveness of initiatives should be statistically analysed.  And, of course, it is.  Not on one big graph or table but on many small ones that look for correlation between the initiative and the desired outcomes.

I believe the mass availability and introduction of cheap domestic smoke alarms into people's homes about 20 years ago had a very noticeable effect on the number of fire deaths.

But that was a national thing and most FRSs spend most of their efforts on local initiatives.  But, if my FRS is an example of all others, no statistical analysis is done on the outcomes of these local initiatives.  My FRS just does what it feels might be good, invests a lot of time, money and effort into it .....and then doesn't properly attempt to find out if it did any good!  

So yes, tw, FRSs must start to look at outcomes and see if they are influenced by what they are spending their money on.

Here's a tale: a project in one of the less prosperous areas of south London a few years ago fitted tens of thousands of smoke alarms to homes that did not have them fitted.  A couple of years later, or so (I haven't got the details at hand), they looked at figures in those areas for fire deaths and injuries to see if these had decreased subsequent to the fitting of the alarms.  They had not!

Indeed, something like half of the alarms had been disabled by the householders themselves. Households with smokers were the most likely to have disabled their alarms!

This research was not done by the FRS.  

Maybe one day the fire service will catch up.

Maybe not.

Stu

[Ken Taylor]

A senior figure in local government once told me that his s/c smoke alarm was defective and so he had removed the battery. The problem, of course, being the warning bleeps to say that the battery needed replacing! I still wonder how many of the battery removals were down to this rather than taking the battery for another use - as has also been known.  I once went to student dormitory accommodation and found that each room had been fitted with a s/c smoke alarm and that all the batteries were missing. Needless to say they were then required to install a proper system throughout. Information on fire prevention and detection needs to get to the public in a readily-received form such as prime time TV and national press. Cost has always been presented as the problem with this - presumably as those that 'weigh' the cost of the action are not the same as those who bear the cost of the fire.

[slubberdegullion]

Information on fire prevention and detection needs to get to the public in a readily-received form such as prime time TV and national press. Cost has always been presented as the problem with this - presumably as those that 'weigh' the cost of the action are not the same as those who bear the cost of the fire.

Yes, I find it difficult to imagine fire safety messages being transmitted during the adverts for Coronation Street.

There have been effective safety campaigns over the years, for example, seat belt introduction and usage, reduction in smoking, intolerance to passive smoking and drink driving.  Think about these and you realise that they each required sustained pressure over decades, campaigners' messages had to reach the masses and change public opinion before any policy emerged on each issue.  

Politicians lead public policy - politicians rely on votes - votes go to those who champion matters perceived as important by the public - therefore politicians (and, consequently, policy) must pander to public opinion.

That kind of makes politicians sound powerless.  Maybe that's true but I don't think it is - public opinion can be moulded and adjusted and that is where policy should be directed at the moment.

Sadly, maybe what we need are a few more tragic fires, maybe that'll do the trick.  

Maybe our new legislation is a clever way to make that happen....

Stu

[nearlythere]

Just to pick up on some of the points above:

First, part of the reasoning behind the new ADB dispensation of the need for self closing devices on certain doors in dwelling houses was the belief that the public would be receiving education on how better to improve the fire safety in their homes.  One thing they would be educated to do would be to shut doors at night (hence obviating the need for self closers).  

This is just one example of where the authors had foresight and faith in anticipating a holistic approach to public fire safety.  FRSs should not let them down in this respect.

Next, on a completely different tack, here's a graph I bandy about:

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o128/slubberdegullion2/lawofdimreturns-1.jpg

The graph represents the relationship between effort expended on CFS initiatives and the number of fire deaths and it shows a typical pattern of decrease, asymptotically approaching a certain value, a certain number of fire deaths per year.  Sadly this number is not zero, it is somewhere around 400.  

This represents a sector of society that it is impossible to reach, impossible to change, no matter how much effort is expended.  There's no getting away from it, this sector exists.

I wonder where we sit on the graph at the moment.  Are we still in the cost effective zone or are we beyond that and spending money that, frankly, could be better spent elsewhere?

Wherever we are on the graph, I think it is important that fire data is properly analysed so that we can know where we are.  And, in turn, we can devise appropriate future strategies.

Stu

Stu
Does your graph factor in political interference.
The ODPM decided that if someone jumps from the window of a burning house to escape fire and gets fatally injured it is not classed as a fire death.

[slubberdegullion]

Ha!  That's not massaging figures (which in itself is despicable), that's major surgery on the figures.  Specifically, it is ignoring proximate cause and is wrong.  Such manipulation would produce a step in the graph arbitrarily located at the point where the change in accounting was made.

Do they really do that?

Stu

[Dinnertime Dave]

Let’s not talk about massaging figures its called ethical recording or as I like to call it unethical recording

[nearlythere]

Ha!  That's not massaging figures (which in itself is despicable), that's major surgery on the figures.  Specifically, it is ignoring proximate cause and is wrong.  Such manipulation would produce a step in the graph arbitrarily located at the point where the change in accounting was made.

Do they really do that?

Stu

Read this.


http://www.fbu.org.uk/newspress/ffmag/2005/1205/ff_dec_05_p20.pdf

[kurnal]

Talking of massaging figures didn't that same erstwhile organisation once accept 16.2% as being an acceptable equivalent to 40%?

Its rife throughout the damned lies / statisitics industry whenever politics are involved. Did you hear the item on Radio 4 pm program last night on hospital waiting times? To show that targets are being met, rather than measuring the actual time talken from seeing consultant to having the op, they take a snapshot of a particular day and look at how long people have been waiting, then average it. So if you have only seen the consultant today and gone on the waiting list, you count in the figures as only having waited 1 day for your operation, even though it may be five years before it is actually done.

[Steven N]

Stu, they do "massage" the figures & it is despicable but in a few years time they will announce that "fire" deaths have dropped so we dont need so many F'F's -just because your paranoid.....................

[slubberdegullion]

It's not paranoia if they really have got it in for you!

Stu