Study on Potential Alternative Approach to Fire Death Reduction

The reduction of residential firc deaths is attained not only by popularization of firc protcction measures such as smoke detectors and residential sprinklers, but also by many othcr cfforts such as improvement of fire safety of appliances and furniture used in homes, popularization of fire-resistive houses, and fire safety education of thc public. This paper cxplorcs a potential approach to fire death reduction by cxamining the factors that affcct firc incidcncc and firc death rates, using statistical analysis of trends by agc group, typcs of homc structure, and causes of fires based on the database of fire incident reports and firc dcath reports in Japan. As a result, it was found that the popularization of safer heating appliances and fire-resistive houses and/or fireproof wooden houses provides us a good prospect for reducing firc dcaths in the future as a potential alternative approach besides fire protection systems. Also. thc dcclining trend in firc death rate of older people seen in recent years will help rcducc thc cstimatcd futurc number of fire dcaths