As I point out in my latest HND piece, the US lags far behind much of the civilized world in fire safety. While this trend is thankfully improving, there is still much ground to be gained.
The conventional wisdom says that smoke detectors save lives, but the truth is far different. Yes, a drop in fire deaths did coincide with the promulgation of these devices, but many others factors came into play at the same time, including more rigorous building codes, better design of electrical appliances, and enhanced fire resistance of many household items.
The other problem is that the popular ionization smoke detectors are more effective at producing false alarms based on cooking vapors than actually responding to most typical residential fire scenarios. Veteran fire protection engineer Richard Patton and many other experts are pulling the lid off this scandal, and Patton names names on his website.
We also discuss residential fire sprinklers, now required in many jurisdictions. They're surprisingly affordable, and definitely do save lives—to say nothing of putting out the fire.
Read the complete article.
Comments