{"id":42,"date":"2016-04-25T03:59:53","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T03:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/?p=42"},"modified":"2016-04-25T04:52:28","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T04:52:28","slug":"investigative-bias-involving-smoke-alarms-in-fatal-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/investigative-bias-involving-smoke-alarms-in-fatal-fires\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigative Bias Involving Smoke Alarms in Fatal Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Quote\"<\/a>
\nInvestigative Bias Involving Smoke Alarms in Fatal Fires
\nJoseph M. Fleming, Deputy Chief
\nVyto Babrauskas, Ph.D.<\/p>\n

Presented at\u00a0International Symposium of Fire Investigation, 2014<\/p>\n

ABSTRACT
\nDuring the investigation of most fires, including fatal\u00a0fires, the \u00a0investigators\u00a0focus almost all of their attention to the\u00a0questions\u00a0of cause and origin.\u00a0This has been the traditional purpose of fire investigation.\u00a0Because of this, the type of\u00a0smoke detector involved, i.e. ionization or photoelectric, is seldom a factor that is considered important.\u00a0In fact, in\u00a0some cases little effort is made to determine if a smoke detector was even present.\u00a0Complicating the investigation of\u00a0this aspect of the fire is the fact that quite often the ceilings have been pulled down, along with the remains of the\u00a0detector in an effort to extinguish the fire.\u00a0The smoke detector, at least what is left of it,\u00a0is buried in debris and\u00a0difficult to recognize.\u00a0In addition,\u00a0the different factors that can affect a smoke detector\u2019s ability\u00a0to detect a fire in\u00a0time to alert the occupants are not well understood.\u00a0As a consequence,\u00a0investigators are not aware\u00a0of any reason to\u00a0investigate the operation of the smoke detector.<\/p>\n

In this paper we show why investigating aspects of smoke detector performance may be important, if not to\u00a0address\u00a0the cause and origin of the fire, at least to understand better\u00a0the cause of injuries and fatalities. In doing this we\u00a0endeavor\u00a0to answer some\u00a0questions that some investigators have had as to why some detectors may not have gone\u00a0off in time to alert the occupants.\u00a0In many cases investigators\u00a0improperly\u00a0assume that if the occupant did not escape, then this means\u00a0that the smoke alarm did not operate.\u00a0We\u00a0also discuss the national statistic regarding smoke alarms\u00a0and how the failure to collect\u00a0relevant\u00a0information may be leading to incomplete and misleading data analysis. Since\u00a0Massachusetts started to collect this information\u00a0and apply lessons learned to public education and code\u00a0improvements,\u00a0the fire death rate per capita has dropped much faster\u00a0in Massachusetts,\u00a0than in the US as a whole.\u00a0While there may be many reasons for this,\u00a0we are confident that\u00a0better collection of data involving smoke alarms is a\u00a0major\u00a0factor.<\/p>\n

Download the complete paper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Investigative Bias Involving Smoke Alarms in Fatal Fires Joseph M. Fleming, Deputy Chief Vyto Babrauskas, Ph.D. Presented at\u00a0International Symposium of Fire Investigation, 2014 ABSTRACT During the investigation of most fires, including fatal\u00a0fires, the \u00a0investigators\u00a0focus almost all of their attention to the\u00a0questions\u00a0of cause and origin.\u00a0This has been the traditional purpose of fire investigation.\u00a0Because of this, the … Continue reading Investigative Bias Involving Smoke Alarms in Fatal Fires<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-association-news","category-isfi-proceedings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nafi.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}