A3 - Fire Safety

Injury from fire

This section considers three important principles to reduce fire injuries - prevention, detection and escape in the event of fire.

The causes of fire may be greatly increased in houses where data show gas installations are poor with only 47% OK. Electrical faults may also lead to fires and data show that only 33% of houses had all power points testing OK. The combined impact of vermin and electrical cables can increase fire risk. Data shows that mice and rats were present in almost 14% of houses, this is a significant reduction from 50% in 2006. Mice and rats cause damage to electrical cables and to appliances such as hot water systems, refrigerators and stoves.

Detection of fire is limited by the fact that only 82% of houses have any smoke detectors fitted and, of those houses with any detector fitted, only 61% had at least one detector functioning.

Escape from house fires will be difficult if, as data show, security screens are often fixed to windows resulting in 37% of houses with the only emergency escape route possible through external doors.