The effects of severe weather conditions on the incidence of fires in dwellings

✍ Scribed by S.E. Chandler

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1982
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 508 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0379-7112
• DOI: 10.1016/0379-7112(82)90004-2

✦ Synopsis

Apart from socio-economic factors, severe winter conditions are also known to affect the incidence of fires in dwellings. The severe winter of 1978 -79 in Great Britain provided an opportunity for assessing these effects and for verifying the results of earlier studies based on the data for the winter of 1962 -63 when similar adverse conditions prevailed. Fires due to space heating, electric blankets, wire and cable (including leads to appliances), and to a lesser extent fires due to smokers' materials, all increase in bad weather conditions. The most vulnerable age group during a cold spell is those aged 65 and over, especially females living alone.

This study is part of a research programme to identify sections of the population which are at greater risk from the damaging effects of fires. --0.87 --0.03 --0.29 0.03 -0.79 Space heating (SH) --0.90 --0.19 --0.52 0.22 .... 0.92 Electric blanket (EB) --0.86 0.14 --0.48 0.20 ..... 0.88 Wire and cable* (WC) --0.84 0.26 --0.45 0.16 -0.82 Smokers' materials (SM) --0.30 --0.37 0.32 --0.07 0.31 Cooking appliances (CK) --0.06 --0.26 0.05 --0.35 0,03 Life risk fires** (LR) All sources of ignition --0.79 0.38 0,52 0.,48 0.39 0.32 0.t2 0.14 --0.39 0.03 .... 0.75 048 Space heating --0.90 0.17 ---0.44 0.03 -(i).86 {).50 Smokers' materials --0.36 --0.04 0.08 --0.11 .... 0.32 0.09 Cooking appliances 0.26 --0.001 0.25 0.11 0.25 0.02 *Including leads to appliances. **Fires involving casualties, rescues, escapes or evacuations.