Legislating for fire safety: the precarious world of enforcement

Fire Protection

Legislating for fire safety: the precarious world of enforcement There is no one tried-and-tested solution regarding the legislation for the installation of fire alarms. FIRE Correspondent Catherine Levin looks at the challenges faced on both sides of the Atlantic

T

here is a wide spectrum of opinion on how far government should go to regulate for fire safety in the home and in the workplace. Under the previous Labour government, the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 updated and consolidated years of benign neglect in the Fire and Rescue Service.

In 1991, under a Conservative government, a private members bill attempted to mandate the presence of smoke alarms in everyone’s home but it was never signed into law. Funnily enough, it was revoked by the Fire Safety Order in 2005, which has no purview in the home, but did mean that this well-meaning bill was well and truly buried.

Red tape and fire safety are strange bedfellows.

A law to compel all households to purchase and maintain a smoke alarm does not exist in the UK. Building regulations provide a framework for those building or renovating homes, ensuring that smoke alarms are appropriately used and with a building inspector engaged to sign off the build, many thousands of homes now have smoke alarms. But many more do not.

Despite the latest Survey of English Housing telling us that 84 per cent of homes claim to have at least one smoke alarm in their home, fire statistics tell a very different story about absence, poor maintenance and removal.

No smoke alarm was present in one third of dwelling fires reported in Great Britain for the period 2011/12, with London reporting a higher figure than the previous year’s national average of 39 per cent for the year 2012/13. National fire statistics also show that in 18 per cent of dwelling fires, the smoke alarm was present but did not operate.

It is a similar story in the US, where the most recent American Housing Survey carried out by the American Bureau of Census showed a 92 per cent ownership level. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) looked at fire statistics between 2005 and 2009 and found that smoke alarms were absent in 28 per cent of reported dwelling fires and where there was a smoke alarm, it operated in only half the fires 44 | April 2014 | www.fire–magazine.com

“How can it be the case that surveys from two different countries carried out by different organisations at different times all found that despite high levels of reported ownership of smoke alarms, in one third of dwelling fires, no smoke alarm was present?”

reported to US fire departments. Surveys for the Consumer Product Safety Commission carried out in the same period also found reporting at the same level.

How can it be the case that surveys from two different countries carried out by different organisations at different times all found that despite high levels of reported ownership of smoke alarms, in one third of dwelling fires, no smoke alarm was present? There is something missing here.

Understanding the Difference Researchers from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, talk about the concept of social desirability bias infecting survey results in recent work on smoke alarm ownership they carried out with the Baltimore Fire Department. This type of bias has been defined as the ‘systematic error in self-report measures resulting from the desire of respondents to avoid embarrassment and project a favourable image to others’1. Is this what is skewing the numbers: embarrassment?

‘Validity of smoke alarm self-report measures and reasons for over-reporting’ was published by the journal Injury Prevention in October 20122. The Johns Hopkins University researchers conducted interviews and home observations with more than 600 low income urban area households. Through this field work they collected answers to questions about fire safety behaviour and then tested smoke alarms in the home.

This is a small sample, so it is hard to draw firm conclusions, but the lead researcher, Andrea Gielen said that it ‘gives some important insights’. She goes on to say that ‘particularly troubling is the fact that one in three of the follow-up respondents indicated greater [smoke alarm] coverage than they actually had because they knew they should’3.

1

Social Desirability Bias and the Validity of Indirect Questioning, Fisher, R.J., Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 20 (2), September 1993.

2 Injury Prevention. 18.5 (Oct. 2012): p298 3 http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2012/ gielen-smoke-detectors.html

Fire Protection

Looking at what can be done to incentivise households to install and maintain a smoke alarm, there is a plethora of laws to wade through and understand. The state of Illinois provides an insight into how far the US has gone to regulate the world of the smoke alarm. The Illinois Smoke Detector Act covers all dwellings regardless of tenure and includes hotels, inns, motels, bed and breakfasts and lodging houses.

It is highly prescriptive about the location of the smoke alarm and places the onus on the owner of the dwelling to supply the smoke alarms.

Burden of Responsibility The tenant (whether the same as the owner or not) has the responsibility for maintaining the alarm. However this law only applies to dwellings constructed, reconstructed or substantially remodeled after December 31, 1987. The penalty for non-compliance is pretty tough, with a first offence (Category A misdemeanor) meaning a fine of $1,000 or potential custodial sentence of up to a year.

As has often been the case after major fires where people have died, legislators take a long hard look at the tools they have to prevent future occurrences and they create so-called ‘tombstone legislation’. This happened in Connecticut on January 1 this year, when a new Act came into force requiring working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in certain residential buildings at the time title is transferred. This comes two years after a widely reported tragic fire where five members of the same family died in Stamford on Christmas Day 2011. The home had no smoke detectors and was under renovation at the time.

Connecticut already required smoke detectors in homes built or renovated after 2005 but this new law embraces pre 2005 homes and sets enforcement in the arena of house sales. When selling a home, the owner now has to sign an affidavit to confirm that the property has working smoke and CO alarms. Where this is not the case, the owner must provide $250 to the new owners to install them instead.

Linking house sales with smoke alarm ownership is a reasonable approach to enforcement, but of course only affects those homes that are sold. Connecticut’s legislation is not unique in the US, with many other states having similar provisions.

Household insurance policies provide another

“As has often been the case after major fires where people have died, legislators take a long hard look at the tools they have to prevent future occurrences and they create so-called ‘tombstone legislation’”

avenue for enforcing smoke alarm ownership. In France the legislation has recently changed and from March 2015 all homes must have at least one smoke alarm. Where a home has a fire and no smoke alarm is present, the home insurance policies will charge occupants a €5,000 excess when they make a claim on the policy. This link between fire and insurance when it comes to compelling smoke alarm ownership is not one that seems to exist in either the UK or the US. Where smoke alarm legislation is absent at a state or other municipal level, as is the case in the state of Colorado, the home of enforcement remains squarely with the fire department through fire codes (such as those set out by the NFPA and others). In most cases, the fire department cannot compel a resident to give access for inspection without at least some form of notice.

Rented homes are easier to access due to licensing requirements on landlords, but private homes remain elusive apart from when another event, such as renovation or change of use, triggers an inspection. Inspecting every home in every state is simply not practical, so enforcement is patchy and likely to miss the many homes that do not comply.

The State of Maryland has required smoke alarms in homes since 1975 through the vehicle of fire codes, and it is these codes that have been updated over time to keep up with smoke alarm technology and the evolution of fire safety messages in the home.

Bill Barnard, recently retired State Fire Marshal for Maryland, points out many owner occupied homes have had no changes to structure or ownership since 1975. It is these homes, often with older residents, which are less likely to have the more comprehensive smoke alarm coverage required by later code changes.

It looks like it could take decades for code changes to really have their desired effect on a wide number of homes.

Working Around the Problem Many fire departments do not have code enforcement jurisdiction in one and two family dwellings and therefore have no means to enforce. They rely on partner agencies, such as social services, which do enter homes to notify them about the absence of smoke alarms.

This ad hoc approach adds to more formal proactive home fire safety visit programmes.

April 2014 | www.fire–magazine.com | 45

Fire Protection Fire departments in the US and the UK make the most of trust that many people have in the Fire and Rescue Service to gain voluntary access to people’s homes.

Cities like Baltimore widely advertise that they will come and install smoke alarms in the homes of residents within two hours of a call to the city-wide 311 number. Allied to this work at fire department level, the US Fire Administration continues to educate the public about the benefits of smoke alarms and the need to maintain them with its 2009 ‘Install.

Inspect. Protect’ campaign and more recent campaign, ‘Fire is Everyone’s Fight’. These approaches assume that people are listening to the messages and receptive; and in the case of Baltimore, proactive.

And of course there is the trigger of a fire in the neighbourhood. Barnard talked about post incident work carried out by crews, a very common approach in the US and in the UK. In Maryland, Barnard talked about crews finding 50 per cent of smoke alarms out of date and/or not operating. Replacing these with ten year sealed alarms goes some way to improve protection but depends on willingness of residents to allow access. And, of course, coverage is patchy at best, dependent on where the fires are happening.

Sometimes spurred on by tragedy, as in the recent spate of fatal fires in Los Angeles, fire departments use the media to get the message about smoke alarms across to the public. But the media is fleeting and soon forgotten; the real task is to make the messages enduring and to get people to take responsibility for their own actions.

It is hard to know how much the idea of social desirability bias really affects those filling out surveys for governments here and in the US, but the level of ownership claimed looks too high when the context shows that in 30 per cent of fires no smoke alarm was present.

Filling the Gaps The patchwork of efforts set out above go a long way to counteract this: the incremental development of fire codes and the range of penalties for non-compliance; the tool of house sales; links with household insurance and excess fees; the randomness of other agencies entering properties and noticing a lack of smoke alarms; post incident outreach and a smattering of public education locally and nationally.

When you add all of this together does it fill all the gaps? In this puzzle where all these efforts have their place, there is a gap where none of these efforts have an impact. That gap shows vulnerability and risk. It would be interesting to map these efforts across a state and see who is left out. Are the people having the fires, being injured or dying in fires in the gap?

One answer to the puzzle may be in the complex world of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Using data to better pinpoint the problem locally may reap rewards. In the 46 | April 2014 | www.fire–magazine.com

“It is right for policy makers and practitioners in the UK and the US to focus on smoke alarm maintenance in public education messaging, but a continued effort to get smoke alarms in to all households has to continue at the same time”

City of Baltimore, the recently retired Chief, Ray O’Brocki, was a huge supporter of the use of GIS mapping to pinpoint where to focus efforts to get smoke alarms in to homes in the city. The mapping that O’Brocki initiated in Baltimore takes account of fires, casualties, fatalities and census data. It does not, however, include data about structure and date of construction, so it does not cross reference with the dates of changes to fire code smoke alarm requirements.

This is all very thought-provoking and makes what seemed to have been a done deal, ie high levels of smoke alarm ownership, look like it really has not met the goals set out by policy makers. Yes, it is right for policy makers and practitioners in the UK and the US to focus on smoke alarm maintenance in public education messaging, but a continued effort to get smoke alarms in to all households has to continue at the same time.

Closing the gap between what people say about smoke alarm ownership and what people actually do is critical here. Los Angeles Fire Department Battalion Chief, Stephen Ruda said in the LA Times after a fatal fire on January 28 where there were no smoke alarms: ‘We can talk and we can write so much, but people have to act. Maybe it’s the apathy of the people’.

He goes on to say that ‘people think it won’t happen to them’. This is, sadly, nothing new.