Residential Fire Prevention Viewed From Many Angles at USFA Meeting
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The many aspects of residential fires and how to prevent them were discussed at the sixth annual conference of the United States Fire Administration in San Francisco. The conference, “Fire Safety Where You Live,” considered everything from environment and human behavior to current and future technologies.
“Although we have the techniques to reduce fire loss,” commented Professor Richard Bland of Pennsylvania State University, the inability to sort out and assign responsibilities at the three governmental levels (community, state and federal) is the cause why the fire problem has not been solved. He also said in keynoting the conference held Jan. 19-21, that the fire service lacks the maturity to bring influence at the federal level.
“It seems to me economics and politics have confused the real issue,” remarked Bland, who was chairman of the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control.
Using the media
The need to identify the group to which your fire safety message is directed was stressed by Rich Adams, editorial director of WDVM-TV. He pointed out that radio stations these days are likely to have a narrow, specific audience which sometimes may be the audience you are trying to reach. On the other hand, he pointed out that TV stations have a broad mass audience and have the ability to shape opinion. Adams regarded the print media as a supplement to the electronic media and noted that printed information can be clipped out and retained.
Efforts to reduce the 1100 deaths of pre-schoolers by fire each year through the Sesame Street fire education project was described by Evelyn Davis, vice president of the Children’s Television Workshop. (See September 1980 issue of Fire Engineering for story on project sponsored by USFA.)
Make message positive
Davis emphasized that only positive messages for fire safety should be presented on TV for pre-schoolers and then only a limited number of them. She warned there is no assurance that a negative action shown on TV will not be copied by a child who ignores the explanation of why the action should not be done.
A plug for the use of plain English to attain funding for public education programs was voiced by Steve Jensen, public information officer of the Phoenix Fire Department. He said that a five-step public fire education planning job had management words that had to be changed to understandable words to get funding for a Learn Not to Burn program. He said that the plain English explanation won the support of the Independent Insurance Agents of Phoenix.
Program to prevent burns
The Learn Not to Burn program, offered by the National Fire Protection Association, was discussed by a panel consisting of Richard Winn, NFPA Public Affairs Division director; Pam McLaughlin, special assistant project coordinator, San Francisco Fire Department; and Norma Sweeney, a San Francisco public school teacher.
In explaining how children can “learn not to burn,” Winn said that the program was designed to be easy enough for teachers to want to use it in the normal subject areas and that it was being used in 4000 school districts.
McLaughlin, in discussing ways of raising money for fire prevention programs from the private sector, said that the two needs for a well thought out grant proposal were a good organization and cost effectiveness as well as accountability. Outside directors and outside evaluation are needed for accountability, she explained.
Declaring that code enforcement “depends ultimately on public support,” Don Flinn, IAFC general manager, said that the fire department must be involved in the design and construction of buildings. As for inspections, he pointed out that there have been consolidations of fire and building departments and suggested the pooling of inspections over a wide geographical area.
Looking at inspection programs as a key to code enforcement, Robert C. Barr of the NFPA Public Protection Division, added that an inspection program has to be realistic with a scheduling of priorities and resources and an information system that explores not only what is being done but whether objectives are being met.
In the area of oven and range fires, Robert Lamb, Jr., administrator, patents and product liability claims, the Tappan Company, offered little hope of improved mechanical safeguards and conjectured that elimination of careless personal behavior is more practical than the advent of a miracle product to prevent fires in the kitchen. He cited the improper installation of gas and electric ranges that did not meet ideal codes as the leading cause of kitchen fires.
“We do know any dedicated careless person can override safety devices,” Lamb declared.
A similar pessimism was voiced by Larry Kenney, retired chief of the Miami Fire Department and past president of the IAFC, who said that while the hazards of portable and fixed space heaters in the home can be minimized by codes and education, these hazards can never be eliminated. Carbon monoxide, the proximity of combustibles and use of wrong fuel are all hazards associated with space heaters, Kenney noted. An explosion is an additional hazard of gas space heaters, he said.
Two-level action
Urging the reduction of fire losses by combining both state and local action, Dick Small, director of the Oregon Fire Standards and Accreditation Board, said that the Oregon system is to attack both state and local fire problems and that “35 cities are now planning under that process with varying degrees of success.” He reported a rise in fires in Oregon until 1974 when there was a decrease with the start of fire prevention programs. Then there was a rise in ’78 and ’79 but the Figures were down in ’80 almost to the ’79 level. Small blamed the rise on heating systems and arson.
Staff photos.
Fire prevention programs, said Fire Marshal Jerry R. Lambert of the Dallas Fire Department, must be justified by documenting a need for them. When there was a dramatic rise in residential fires in Dallas that were caused by fireworks on roofs, fire fighters monitored Fireworks stands outside the city, and at the city line, fire fighters stopped the cars of those who had bought fireworks and issued citations. The results, Lambert said was an 83 percent drop in fireworks fires and a 62 percent drop in dollar loss.
He told how a presentation of the statistical probability of Fires and serious losses in houses with wood-shingled roofs was made before the Dallas City Council with the result that the council passed an ordinance banning such shingles for new residences and requiring fire safe shingles to be used when wood roofs were replaced or damaged at least 50 percent.
San Bernardino fire
A panel that discussed the San Bernardino Fire of last fall consisted of Chief Gerald Newcombe of the City of San Bernardino Fire Department; John Bryant, South Zone coordinator for the U. S. Forest Service; Chief Clyde Bragdon of Los Angeles County; Rex Griggs, regional chief of the California Department of Forestry; and William Patterson, U. S. Fire Administration regional fire representative.
Newcombe said that the fire that destroyed 280 homes in San Bernardino caused five deaths and involved the wood shingle issue. The chief reported, “We lost 280 homes in San Bernardino—and 90 percent had wood roof coverings.”
Bryant cited the weather conditions, the fuel and the people as the three reasons for the extent of the San Bernardino fire. Bragdon described the fires that burned from Nov. 24-30 as very “resource intensive.” He pointed out that 10,000 fire fighters and support personnel, along with 642 engines, 25 helicopters and 37 air tankers were involved in the fight. Aiding in the accessibility of resources, Bragdon explained, is the California Mutual Aid System, that on a voluntary basis involves all the counties in the state and 408 of the 412 cities.
Griggs voiced a need “for a total systems approach” to mitigating the fire problem in Southern California. He saw substandard access roads, water system compromises, wood shingle roofs and a lack of a required 30-foot vegetation cutting zone around homes as things that provide an opportunity for conflagrations in the area.
Involving company officers
A different way of managing fire prevention by placing the responsibilities for fire safety public education and fire prevention activities on company officers was described by Chief Ray Picard of Huntington Beach, Calif.
Picard explained that his city is divided into one-quarter square mile areas so that one such area is assigned to each company officer, who is responsible for identifying the fire problem in that square and devising a solution for it. The Huntington Beach chief said that his program, called operation fire safety, incorporates public education and fire prevention in pre-fire planning.
Because of the failure of the traditional punitive approach to prevent arson, the carrot on the stick in the form of financial aid is being tried in New Haven and New York, said Cliff Karchmer of the Human Affairs Research Center of the Law and Justice Studies Center. He explained that if the owner agrees to fix up his property, the municipality may allow deferred payment of taxes, arrange a low-cost loan for repairs or provide other assistance, which is “usually some form of financial shot in the arm,” to remove the arson temptation.
How people act
The behavioral approach to people and residential fire control was discussed by a panel consisting of John Keating, associate professor at the University of Washington; Chief Jim Estepp of Prince Georges County, Md.; and Clay Hollister of the Office of Planning and Education of the U. S. Fire Administration. Keating aimed darts at the myth of panic during a fire and declared that instead of panic, his research of single dwelling fires showed altruism of family members helping each other to survive.
Keating saw as critical the role of what he called social engineering of buildings and explained that there is a need “to design buildings to Fit the behavior people are used to, familiar with and will use in a crisis.”
Hands-on training for nursing home staffs and a vigorous inspection program, said Estepp, has resulted in a recent record of no fire fatalities or injuries in health care facilities in Prince Georges County. The chief voiced the opinion that this record was more than just luck. He explained that nurses at such facilities must attend a four-hour seminar as a minimum requirement and one of the objectives of his program is to convince nurses that they are not fire fighters and should cooperate with the fire department as needed.
Urging fire departments to use mass media for a continuing public fire education effort, Hollister described the development of a media kit visual aid program to prevent burns. Each kit is concerned with but a single subject and the program is designed for the insertion of local messages. Hollister said the kit was pilot-tested in four states with encouraging results.
Hollister said that in Keene, N.H., there was a 10 percent decline in fires after TV showing of a kitchen grease fire kit and there was a 30 percent decline reported by the hospital for kitchen burn incident injuries.
Home sprinkler systems
Optimism about sprinkler systems designed specifically for homes was voiced by Assistant Chief Donald O. Manning of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, who discussed the fullscale fire tests conducted in Los Angeles. He said tests were made with a fast response head that acted in most of the tests five times sooner than the usual commercial sprinkler head. He pointed out that it was not uncommon to record temperatures zooming from 80 degrees to 600 degrees at ceiling level in 10 seconds.
Manning declared that smoke detectors and sprinkler systems are necessary for a reduction in the loss of lives in residential fires and he urged communities that adopt the NFPA 13-D code for residential sprinkler systems to include closets and attached garages in the areas that must be sprinklered.
Detector false alarms
A solution to the false alarm problem in a relatively new housing community fully protected by smoke detectors was presented by Steve Dorsett, fire marshal of the Woodlands, Texas, Fire Department. Homes in this new community have automatic residential remote alarm systems (ARRAS) which provide both a high protection level and false alarms. Dorsett said that the fire department dispatcher makes a phone call to determine whether a fire actually exists before dispatching apparatus and this action has made a 75 percent reduction in fire department responses.
How an automatic residential remote alarm system (ARRAS) installation was accepted by residents of an established municipality of 86,000 population was described by Mayor Tom Taylor of Westland, Mich. First, the need for ARRAS had to be demonstrated and house fires with multiple deaths underscored the need, Taylor recalled. A 35-man task force was formed to obtain broad community support and the construction of a cable TV system provided the medium for ARRAS alarms.
Taylor reported some reluctance of residents to take on a $7.50 monthly payment that included amortization of the approximately $450 charge for ARRAS installation in a home. On the plus side, Taylor stated, were insurance reductions of as much as 30 percent for individual ARRAS customers.
Looking to the future, Ed Budnik, who heads fire protection systems research at the NBS Center for Fire Research, saw a combination ionization/ photo-electric smoke detector and a fast-response sprinkler head as two items needed to improve home fire safety. The combination detector would reduce the false alarm problem by not transmitting a signal to a central station unless both the ionization and photo-electric sensors in the detector were activated.
The fast-response sprinkler head depends on a nitinol (titanium and nickel) activation unit that can provide both quick action and on and off capability.
Another concept for home fire safety, Budnik disclosed, is a central detection system with local and remote alarm systems that would draw air samples from various areas of a home and could monitor smoke, aerosols and temperature. It would be possible for toxic gases in the future.
Chief Jerry Knight of Largo, Fla., wondered what will happen if sprinkler heads that are five times more sensitive and operate at lower temperatures false as do smoke detectors. He saw the falsing by smoke detectors as “a challenge to the industry to make them more reliable.”
Insurance discount
Responding to the feeling that smoke detectors and sprinklers should bring insurance discounts, Ralph Jackson, loss prevention manager for the Allstate Insurance Company, pointed out that the only legitimate basis for discounts is a reduction of risk. He said that the less need there is for human response to a warning device to lessen the fire risk, the better off the insurance company is. He also stressed the fact that fire risk is less than 50 percent of the consideration of the risks covered in homeowners’ policies.
Jackson was critical of a European custom of discouraging arson by paying a smaller amount to owners who do not rebuild burned buildings. Remarking that this “is not the panacea it is said to be,” Jackson pointed out that if a person burns a building he bought at a bargain price and rebuilds it, he winds up with a more valuable property.
In advising how to obtain the passage of local ordinances for fire safety, Chief Jack Gerard of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, warned that the completed ordinance bill must be in your hip pocket to take advantage of the public clamor after a disaster because otherwise, it takes six months to get everyone involved to agree on the language of the ordinance and by that time, nobody cares about it.
Gerard cautioned that when the time comes for the passage of an ordinance, you should remember that politicians want the credit and you have to be willing to share it with them. Gerard also said that you have to have an enforcement plan that is reasonable “or you may not survive your ordinance.”
Municipal insurance
The idea of municipalities providing fire insurance for their residents was discussed by William Hanna of Mission Research Corporation and John P. Drennan of Allstate Insurance Company. Hanna saw municipal insurance taking the form of a franchise issued to an insurance company and he felt that this would take place soon. The initial insurance offering, he predicted, would be homeowners policies for single family occupancies under a cooperative agreement between the city and the insurance carrier.
Drennan pointed out that fire losses account for but 32 percent of the homeowners’ policy payments and the Mission Research report used only the dwelling Fire rates. Drennan claimed that the excess profits cited by Mission Research did not exist as Mission Research claimed.
Grading schedule
The Insurance Services Office “Fire Suppression Rating Schedule” was both defended and attacked at another session. Richard E. Hughey, assistant manager of the ISO engineering division, explained that the newest rating schedule is concerned only with the Fire department, the fire alarm system and the water system. In meeting criticism that fire prevention and code enforcement credits were removed from the ISO grading schedule, Hughey explained that the impact of code programs is reflected in the schedule by both the fire department and water system. He commented also that the adoption of codes does little to reduce the problems of older buildings.
Hughey explained that the water supply section of the schedule has been restructured to recognize all forms of supply to the fireground, including tanker shuttles and pumper relays.
Costis Toregas, vice president of Public Technology, Inc., when asked what he would like in the grading schedule, declared, “I’d like to throw the damn schedule away.” Toregas noted that the schedule is not used for cities above 250,000 population and warned his listeners, “that’s going to place the burden on your shoulders.” He suggested that this change will make chiefs “fire managers.”
Toregas thought it inappropriate for an outside agency “to define levels of protection for a municipal agency.” Toregas also felt that community officials should establish their own fire prevention goals and assume the task of establishing both protection and suppression levels.
Chief Charles Rule of Alexandria, Va., who said he hadn’t used an ISO grading schedule for 10 years, declared that local government should have the authority to determine the levels of fire safety codes and he attacked the state minimaxi codes that prevent a municipality from doing this.
Rule also felt that municipalities will have to look at social problems “which the fire department is not capable” of handling. He pointed out that people with drug and other problems are the ones who frequently have fires.
Declaring that “the emergency first responder for local disaster is the fire service,” Joseph Moreland, USFA deputy administrator, said that the fire service has yet to recognize the potential this concept holds for the growth of the fire service.
“The fire service itself doesn’t really appreciate—or look to—itself as the emergency first responder, “ Moreland commented.
He pointed out that this concept can aid in obtaining budget requests and that the fire service should be making master plans for various types of disasters so that it can do a better job. He criticized the failure of state master planning for emergencies to develop a downward line of communications to municipalities and he also urged the development of local master plans for disasters.
In discussing emergency planning, Chief Ron J. Coleman of San Clemente, Calif., urged marrying this endeavor to the fire department’s master planning process. Master planning, he explained, involves an interdisciplinary approach to determine the level of fire protection.
Declaring that the “fire service should not have to stand alone” in an emergency, Coleman asked why fire chiefs should be the only ones to be asked “Why?” after a large fire when they don’t have the responsibility for the construction of fire hazards. He advised that master plans should constantly evaluate the local situation, and he commented that the fire service should not have a monopoly on martyrdom and responsibility.”
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Chief Tells of Fighting MGM Fire
“It was unreal. It was like a science fiction movie,” Chief Roy Parrish of Clark County, Nev., said of his first view of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas as he responded to the fire there that took 84 lives.
Of these, 18 died on the first floor, six others died in elevators and one woman fell to her death while sliding a rope.
“We did not have three people who jumped to their deaths,” Parrish stated.
Elevators were never used for fire fighting and rescue operations, he said. Stairs, ladders, elevating platforms and helicopters were used to rescue people and a welder’s basket was commandeered by a worker who rescued 25 persons.
The initial phone call on the fire was received by the Clark County Fire Department at 7:17 a.m. last Nov. 21. A second alarm was struck and also mutual aid was supplied by the Las Vegas, Boulder City, North Las Vegas, Nellis Air Force Base and Henderson Fire Departments.
Master streams used
Dripping plastic, intense heat and flames kept fire fighters from entering the casino, now fully involved in fire, until flames sweeping the extensive canopy over the exterior entrance had been beaten back. Master stream appliances were used effectively, Parrish commented.
By 8:30 a.m., the fire was under control, the Clark County chief said, although “total evacuation of the building was not accomplished until about 12 noon.” He said that evacuation of the hotel rooms was complicated by the movement of some guests to floors that had previously been searched and cleared.
Parrish praised the effectiveness of automatic sprinklers, which were only in certain parts of the hotel. Three sprinkler heads at the entrance to the showroom area kept out flames in the casino and sprinklers also protected the arcade from an invasion of fire from the casino, the chief reported.
Parrish commented that in all areas where “sprinkler systems were installed, the fire was stopped in its tracks.” He said the fire started in the Deli and quickly spread to the casino, which was not protected by sprinklers.
Speaking on the EMS aspects of the MGM fire, Mike Olsen of the National Fire Administration said that “a single location fire can have all the elements of a disaster,” but most plans don’t consider a single location disaster. He reported that “the deaths and injuries continue to be from products of combustion.” At the MGM Grand Hotel, there were deaths more than 20 floors above the fire in the casino.
Because of the need, two triage areas were set up and this, Olsen said, was a lesson to be learned. Fortunately, Clark County school buses, used to transport fire victims, were equipped with twoway radios and the fire occurred at the time of shift change in both the hospital and fire department, so extra personnel was available.
