Abstract
The preparation and practice of home-escape plans are important strategies for individuals and families seeking to reduce and/or prevent fire-related injury or death. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of and factors associated with, home-escape plans in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The study used data from two surveys—a 2016 fire safety attitudes and behaviour survey administered to high-risk individuals (n = 296) and a 2013 NSW health survey covering 13,027 adults aged 16 years and above. It applied multinomial logistic regression analyses to these data to identify factors associated with having a written home-fire escape plan, having an unwritten home-fire escape plan and not having any home-fire escape plan. The prevalence of written home-escape plans was only 4.3% (95% CI: 2.5, 7.5) for the high-risk individuals and 7.9% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.3, 8.6) for the entire NSW population. The prevalence of unwritten escape plans was 44.6% (95% CI: 38.8, 50.5) for the high-risk individuals and 26.2% (95% CI: 25.1, 27.2) for the NSW population. The prevalence of no-escape plan at all was 51.1% (95% CI: 45.2, 56.9) for the high-risk individuals and 65.9% (95% CI: 64.8, 67.1) for the NSW population. After adjusting for other covariates, the following factors were found to be significantly associated with unwritten-escape plan and no-escape plan prevalence: speaking only the English language at home, practicing home-fire escape plans infrequently, being married, being female and testing smoke alarms less often. Future fire interventions should target people who speak only English at home and people who test their smoke alarms infrequently. These interventions should be accompanied by research aimed at reversing the trend toward use of more flammable materials in homes.
Highlights
In financial year 2016–2017 (FY17), fire-fighting agencies in Australia attended 95,508 fire events.Of these, 17,043 events (18% of the total) related to structure fires
For structure fires in New South Wales (NSW), the time from receipt of phone call by the fire-fighting agency to arrival of the first fire crew at the fire scene averaged 7.5 min, with response time being slightly lower in the major cities and higher in regional and remote areas [1]
61% of the high-risk individuals were aged over 65 years compared with 32% for the NSW population
Summary
In financial year 2016–2017 (FY17), fire-fighting agencies in Australia attended 95,508 fire events.Of these, 17,043 events (18% of the total) related to structure fires In financial year 2016–2017 (FY17), fire-fighting agencies in Australia attended 95,508 fire events. In NSW, Australia’s largest state, the number of fire events was 33,856 of which 6414 were structure fires (19%) and 6013 were responded to by Fire & Rescue NSW (FRNSW) [1]. For structure fires in NSW, the time from receipt of phone call by the fire-fighting agency to arrival of the first fire crew at the fire scene averaged 7.5 min, with response time being slightly lower in the major cities and higher in regional and remote areas [1]. The costs of fire are multi-fold, ranging from property damage to loss of life, physical injury and mental trauma. In 2017, insurance claims for fire damage to residential properties amounted to
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