An Insidious Disease?

A recent outbreak caused approximately 198 deaths in four months. The medical examiner found pulmonary edema and damage to the trachea, bronchi and alveoli in the upper areas of the lungs. Most of the victims were children, who have been particularly vulnerable to this menace. The disease has turned up throughout the country, and the medical examiner was concerned about the root cause of the disease process. Then the weather began to warm, and the disease diminished in intensity. Yet occasional outbreaks still occur throughout the country.


Diseases emerge and go away, and while this disease killed more than 198 people, it did not reach the threshold necessary to raise public fear. In fact, this disease actually has killed an average of 4,000 per year without national concern because most of the deaths occur one or two at a time.


The disease is residential fire deaths. House fire are no longer feared by most people — in fact, many feel indifferent. People are more afraid of weapons of mass destruction than a frequent threat that can involve anyone at any time. In fact, there seems to be an unusually high number of what NFPA calls catastrophic multiple death fires this year.


Ed Comeau, a technical writer on a range of fire service subjects, started to focus attention on these fires because we have all become just a little too accepting of these deaths. He started keeping track of the multiple death fires and has made the fire events available online. It’s a pretty impressive list for only a little over six month’s data. He also identified a critical gap in available information and noted that such information could be useful to keeping the the threat of fire on everyone’s minds.


There is a saying that “what gets measured gets done.” As a result of Comeau’s life-safety activism, the U.S. Fire Administration has begun to make available daily information about fire deaths nationally. Quick Response: Fire Safety in the News monitors news media outlets to learn of residential fire fatalities nationally. The USFA’s approach is to make available for the media up-to-date information about fires and relevant fire safety information.


Fire chiefs also can play a role in reducing the acceptance of residential fire fatalities by taking tragedies to advocate more attention to the problem. Some departments will place full focus on the fire and send operational firefighters door to door with the teachable moment. If the fire chief shows leadership by expressing concern, it will likely get the attention of local media, elected officials and community leaders, which could offer unanticipated opportunities to talk more about the fire problem and the need for residential sprinklers and working smoke alarms on every level of a home. The fire chief also could benefit from this exposure by being able to talk about what their department needs more of to make the community even safer.


While the disease of fatal fires does not spread through the normal epidemic process it can be as insidious if we ignore and even tolerate it. Is it possible for acceptance of fatal fires to become like crime and blight where tolerance brings about more of the same? Look at how municipalities have dealt with graffiti and other unacceptable social conditions, immediately eliminating the evidence by repainting the surface that was vandalized. Could we do the same for fires by aggressively attacking the root causes when the fires occur?

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