A Different Approach
I have been thinking that we need to approach fire investigation and reporting more holistically, much like the National Transportation Safety Board treats a transportation wreck and like many jurisdictions reconstruct vehicle collisions. We need to address the root causes that allow deaths to occur rather than just focusing an origin and cause determination.
There are actions and omissions that enable — and keep enabling — a multiple-death fire to occur in the first place. We need to attack those root causes with all our capacity and energy. Fire chiefs can have the spotlight after a fatal fire to talk about their total disgust for the tolerance for these conditions. Publicize as unacceptable the most common root causes at the local level. Fire chiefs can present a compelling argument for additional fire and life-safety resources. But that teachable moment will evaporate nearly as quickly as the opportunity developed.
I have no doubt that most of the places where multiple-fire deaths occurred have excellent fire departments that did everything by the books when responding to the 911 call. But something happened before the fire department ever got the call, possibly before the fatal fire even began, that tipped the balance in favor of death instead of survival.
There are three essential elements of fire and life safety: education, engineering and enforcement. You can reduce risk significantly if you are approaching all three of these function areas sincerely. But most departments are not. Think about this in terms of Francis L. Brannigan‘s “Fire Slot Machine.” If you pull the one-armed bandit and get three Es, you achieve fire and life safety. If there is a lesser employment or effectiveness of any one of the three Es, then you have a range of risk from “whew, that was close” to the mayor and many of the town‘s residents attending funerals for a whole family who died in a catastrophic breakdown of the principles of protection.
Plug the root causes into a problem-solving flow chart, brainstorm all the different things that could and should be able to prevent them from occurring, and put out whatever effort it takes to eliminate it from happening. This can reduce these multiple-death fires. Shouldn‘t families be safe in their homes?
By the way, multiple deaths occur in newly constructed homes, too, despite what the National Association of Home Builders would tell customers. Recently a fire in a new home in Saint Michael, Md., killed three young people. The home was built just outside of an incorporated area that requires residential sprinklers in a single-family home. Residential sprinklers reduce the chance of flashover by wetting the walls and ceilings and most likely putting out the fire. But the life-saving technology didn‘t wet the walls in that fire because it wasn’t required.
Related Topics: Michael Love, Public Education, Leadership
September 25th, 2007 at 9:35 am
What an exceptional article. This is the forward thinking needed in understanding why the same percentage of people still die in their home, as did in the ’70’s.
Thanks so much for this.
Matthew J. Willis, CET
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