By Mark Chubb
The furor accompanying recent news reports that children sleep through bleating smoke alarm horns1,2 highlights a very serious and persistent problem: Firefighters, like the public, know too little about fire safety. This story and the faint echoes of shocked firefighters following it are wake-up calls to the American fire service. We must get a better handle on fire protection and fire prevention beginning with an understanding of how smoke alarms have helped halve the risk of dying in a household fire. An appreciation of fire-related human behavior that looks beyond what people do in fires toward why they do it will make a good start.
The fact that kids sleep through smoke alarms comes as no surprise to anyone with a teenager, let alone anyone who was one. If most kids can sleep through earthquakes quite comfortably, why should the whine of a smoke alarm merit more than a wink or a wince? Researchers have known for years that kids require more sleep and sleep more soundly than adults do. Their developing brains and growing bodies require much more rest than ours do to restore their energy levels. The appearance of sleep belies just how much work children’s brains continue doing while their bodies rest and rebuild. This work involves longer periods of deep sleep with attendant dream states. For all we know, smoke alarms may penetrate the shroud of sleep only to be absorbed or recast within the dream world. This could mean that louder smoke alarms wouldn’t work much better than the ones we already have or that getting them to function the way we want them to could result in psychological trauma every bit as damaging as the physical trauma a fire could cause.
The notion that smoke alarms must perform perfectly has come from adults’ childish, imperfect expectations borne on misapprehensions about how these devices actually work. As National Fire Protection Association President Jim Shannon noted recently in his response to the growing crisis of confidence, the United States has witnessed a remarkable decline in fire incidents and fire deaths over the two decades or so since these little marvels entered the marketplace.3 Those people still dying in fires are far more likely not to have a smoke alarm than the rest of the population, which, by the way, reports at least one working smoke alarm installed in almost nine out of every 10 households. The fact that many of these need batteries, have passed their “use by” dates, are improperly located, or simply don’t get maintained suggests the source of much of the residual risk attending those households with smoke alarms that experience fires.
Recent research at the Center for Environmental Safety and Risk Engineering at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, suggests that smoke alarms deserve the good PR they get but save far fewer people who have fires at night than we might like to think. Patricia Brennan and Ian Thomas (2001) analyzed Australian fire incident reports and found that most people experiencing a fire at night awoke and escaped without the aid of a smoke alarm.4 Previous research in the United States and Canada indicated that the first person to respond to a sounding smoke alarm in nearly three out of four incidents was a neighbor.5
Then who’s benefiting from installing smoke alarms, and how? Well the downward trend in fire incidents suggests that some of the benefit comes from warning people about fires that occur when they are awake. This makes sense when you consider that unattended cooking accounts for the lion’s share of all residential fires in the United States and that very few of these fires result in deaths. No one can say for sure how many cooking fires go unreported, but you can bet it’s quite a few.
In all likelihood, unreported fires of all types hold the key to understanding what smoke alarms do to help make homes safer. Some fire departments conduct periodic surveys to estimate the proportion of fires that fail to generate a fire service response. In New Zealand, for example, only around one in 10 fires requires fire service intervention; the public deals with the rest quite successfully without any assistance whatsoever. Estimates of the United States’ experience of unreported fires vary widely. The most inclusive definition of an unreported fire suggests that as many as 25 fires occur for every one reported to a fire department.6 This begs the question: Do Americans have that many more fires than Kiwis, or do they deal with a larger share of them without help? It may help to know that New Zealand households only recently achieved an 80 percent rate of smoke alarm installation.
What distinguishes all the unreported fires from those attended by fire departments? Well, for one thing, they’re almost always small, sometimes very small. Size matters because people can comfortably and confidently deal with small fires without special tools or knowledge. Even the wrong actions rarely make matters much worse. Smoke alarms help people manage fires successfully by alerting them well before the fire gets too big to handle. And no matter how many times we tell them or how sternly we warn them, people will almost instinctively try to fight a small fire rather than let it get out of hand. After all, why should they get out and wait just to have the fire department cause more damage when it arrives several minutes later to put out the by then much larger fire?
If you assume that cooking fires account for a large share of the unreported fires, it also follows that people will fight the fire rather than leave out of a sense of responsibility for the mistake of letting the fire start in the first place. In fact, this response—again, contrary to fire service advice—explains something else that the Australian researchers Brennan and Thomas found striking: Those people who die in a fire far more often than not had something to do with its starting in the first place. Put plainly, they were the instruments of their own demise.7
We often joke that men, women, and children are the three leading causes of fires. This is only funny because it’s true; still, we do very little to understand why and even less to change it. The widespread acceptance of our advice to install smoke alarms suggests people listen to what we have to say. If they don’t always act as we wish, we might be at fault—not them. Changing their behavior might have to begin with accepting what we cannot change.
People frequently act to protect their gains while gambling with their losses.8 Having made the investment in a smoke alarm, people may feel inclined to give fire little or no further thought. Once installed, the smoke alarm represents a gain against the fear they will die in a fire. With fire risk now considered remote, they may continue engaging in conduct that results in serious but unforeseen risks without fear of the immediate, let alone long-term, consequences.
The strong public reaction to news stories about children sleeping through smoke alarms lays waste to the preconception that they put fire risk to bed. But it does nothing to stimulate a reasonable, let alone productive, response. Waiting for someone to build a better mousetrap, assuming that’s feasible let alone desirable, takes too long, so instead people look for someone to blame.
To the quick goes the advantage, though. This all too predictable behavior suggests we have an opportunity to seize the moment by recommending ways people can act to reduce their risk by preventing fires in the first place. This can start by reminding the public that even the best-designed smoke alarms would only do their job properly when people do theirs poorly.
Taking responsibility has only gone out of fashion because we have let ourselves believe that there’s always someone else to blame. If we accepted that smoke alarms already work as well as they can or even should, then perhaps we could help reverse this adverse and apathetic tendency in our society. That only sounds hard until you consider that it plays right into another strong social and behavioral norm: looking out for number one!
Perhaps we should address the media interest and public concern about smoke alarms with this straightforward and honest reply: “Wake up and smell the smoke yourself, America! Don’t rely on your smoke alarm to prevent fires. Protect yourself and your family by recognizing that those tiny, insignificant fires you’ve had and thought you handled just fine signal a careless attitude toward fire safety in your home. Don’t let yourself or your family become a statistic! Don’t expect someone else to do it for you. Take responsibility for fire safety in your home by preventing fires rather than relying on someone else for your protection.” Hopefully, your local fire department can help you learn how.
References
1. Milwaukee Channel (2002). “Sounding the Alarm: A 12 News Special Investigation, Children Aren’t Waking Up to Fire Alarms,” Firehouse.com, http://www.firehouse.com/news/2002/10/24_IBSwi.html.
2. Cunningham, T. M. (2002). Children and Smoke Detectors, Firefighting.com, http://www.firefighting.com/ default.asp?GoTo=namID6918.
3. Shannon, J. M. (2002). “NFPA President Jim Shannon says smoke alarm conclusion could be dead wrong,” Firehouse.com, http://www.nfpa.org/Research/ NFPAFactSheets/Alarms/Conclusion_could_be_wrong/ conclusion_could_be_wrong.asp.
4. Brennan, P. and I. Thomas (2001). “Predicting Evacuation Response and Fire Fatalities.” Human Behavior in Fire: Understanding Human Behavior for Better Fire Safety Design. Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Human Behavior in Fire, March 26-28, 2001, Boston, MA. London, England: Interscience Communications Ltd., 321-332.
5. Gratz, D. B. and R. E. Hawkins (1980). Evaluation of Residential Smoke Detector Performance Under Actual Fire Conditions: Final Report, Phase I. Washington, DC: United States Fire Administration.
6. Zdep, S. M.; M. J. Kilkenny; and J. McGowan (1985). 1984 National Sample Survey of Unreported Residential Fires: Final Technical Report, prepared for U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Contract No. C-83-1239. Princeton, NJ: Audits & Surveys, Inc.
7. Brennan, P. and I. Thomas (2001). “Victims of Fire?” Predicting Outcomes in Residential Fires. Human Behavior in Fire: Understanding Human Behavior for Better Fire Safety Design. Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Human Behavior in Fire, March 26-28, 2001, Boston, MA. London, England: Interscience Communications Ltd., 123-134.
8. Kahneman, D. and A. Tversky (1979). “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decisions Under Risk,” Econometrica 47, 263-291.
MARK CHUBB is assistant fire region commander for Transalpine Fire Region of the New Zealand Fire Service. He formerly served as the executive director of the Southeastern Association of Fire Chiefs and fire code coordinator for Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc. in Birmingham, Alabama. He has a bachelor of science degree in fire science and urban studies from the University of Maryland and a graduate certificate in applied management from the Australian Institute of Police Management. He is currently studying for the degree Master of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington. Chubb is a member of the Institution of Fire Engineers and a certified building official. He is a Fire Engineering editorial advisory board member.
Look Who’s Talking Now
At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, a talking smoke alarm won a prestigious 2003 Innovations Award in the home appliance category. The smoke alarm allows the user to record a message for playback when the device activates. The inventors believe the device will prove more effective at alerting children than conventional alarms because it presents a familiar and calming alert. They also suggest that messages that incorporate instructions about what to do can prevent children from hiding or taking other actions that place them at risk during a fire.
Researchers have known for many years that people respond far more effectively to vocal commands than other types of fire alarm signals. But the application of this finding to single-station smoke alarms raises many new questions.
For starters, what factors affect voice clarity and playback quality in homes? In all likelihood, many factors, including the smoke alarm’s location, interior finishes, furnishings, and closed doors and the effect of the fire itself on the alarm, could greatly affect audibility. Even if the device operates properly, the quality and usefulness of the message will depend almost entirely on the user.
Today’s standards recommend the installation of smoke alarms in each bedroom; outside the bedrooms; on each occupied floor; and in living rooms, dens, dining rooms, and similar locations. The interconnection of these devices so all will sound if any one activates is required for new installations and encouraged elsewhere. Will the operation of talking smoke alarms result in a coordinated message or an effect similar to cocktail party chatter, with all the voices competing with one another to be understood? If talking smoke alarms are installed only in children’s bedrooms, how will the operation of smoke alarms elsewhere in the dwelling activate the voice message? If the other smoke alarms do not activate the voice message, how helpful will the devices be if the fire starts in another room? Will the horns on the other smoke alarms drown out the voice message or undermine the supposed calming effect?
With the devices not yet available on the market, the inventors still have time left to answer these and other questions—not the least of these may be what effect the planned $50 price tag would have on getting this and other smoke alarms into the homes of those who need them most.
For more information on the talking smoke alarm, visit the following Web sites: CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/01/12/alarm.parents.ap/index.html; Startribune.com http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/3580683.html; and International CES http://www.cesweb.org/ awards/innovations/default.asp.
