Public Education Messages Should Reflect Research

The last few years have provided the fire service with many talking points, such as flow path, door control, ventilation and stream type, most of which are based on the results of the continuing research of Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the International Society of Fire Service Instructors (ISFSI). While some conversations have ended with disagreement, others have ended with wholesale changes in how we address fire suppression. However, the effect of these research findings on public education efforts still needs to be addressed.

Even though more and more departments are providing year-round public education and risk reduction programs, October remains the time of year when we as a service wholly increase our efforts. Every October we visit multiple schools, assemblies, daycares and other public gatherings where we educate citizens on the best practices for safety when it comes to house fires. The majority of departments will use the standard “stop, drop and roll” or “crawl low in smoke” messages they’ve been presenting for the past decade. While our current programs have been successful, the following questions need to be asked: If we are re-evaluating our firefighting strategies and tactics based on the research findings, should we not also revisit our public education message? Are we providing the public with current and up-to-date information that matches the way modern fires behave, or are we teaching messages based on fires from 30 years ago? Are we potentially leading people in the wrong direction?

From recent studies we have found that many fires are reaching flashover in under four minutes, well before units can operate on the scene. Studies also show us that fuel loads in today’s fires are producing products of combustion (smoke) at a volume drastically higher than that of fires in the past. Lastly, studies confirm the effectiveness of using doors to provide a level of safety from fire. This information, in addition to our current understanding of smoke alarms and their limited abilities, should provide the foundation for our new public education message.

Sprinklers

Our priority is residential fire sprinklers. Sprinklers are still the best way to protect people from fire. Unfortunately, this code adoption has been met with opposition, thus we continue to see people die in fires. We’ve made great progress in installing smoke alarms, but I attribute some of that to our willingness to offset the cost; otherwise, it’s doubtful that the current number of installed smoke alarms would have been achieved. Sprinklers are the answer, but we still have a long way to go.

Doors

When looking at our public education efforts, it seems that the greatest emphasis should be placed on the need to close doors in our homes. We teach people over and over again that when awakened by their smoke alarm, to roll out of bed and feel the back of the door. However, do you close all of the doors in your house at night when you go to bed? Probably not, so why do we assume the general public does? Unless the majority of your fire district’s homes are still heated with coal or wood stoves that require you to close the doors to rooms you don’t want to heat, a likely majority of your residents are leaving doors open in their homes to facilitate the needed air circulation for efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) operations. Much like the advances in lightweight construction, HVAC has made our lives better, but with the unintended consequence of consistently open doors. We have to ensure we’re putting “protection by door” in our messages to children and adults and stressing its importance. The importance of needing a secondary means of egress should also be emphasized.

Evacuation

Some might disagree with me on this point, but based on the science it’s probably a better idea to stop telling people to leave the room and crawl low into the smoke if they have a secondary means of egress. Current code requires all bedrooms to be equipped with a window with an opening of five square feet for emergency egress purposes. If someone is awakened by a smoke alarm and opens the door to a hallway full of smoke, the safest thing for them to do is to close the door, exit through the window and report to their safe meeting place, never attempting to navigate through the potentially lethal environment within their home.

However, let’s assume a person can’t evacuate through the window, they don’t have a secondary egress and a decision must be made at the door. From research findings, we know the fire will probably reach flashover in less than four minutes. The occupant isn’t going to know how long the fire has been burning or where it’s located. Research has shown that with our modern fire load, houses will rapidly fill with smoke. We tell our fully equipped firefighters to crawl low in smoke, but is this the best option for an unprotected resident? I propose that we educate people to understand that when they can’t see the exit, they’re potentially safer returning to their room, closing the door and alerting the fire department via the window or 9-1-1 of their location, as opposed to continuing a blind search for the exit in potentially lethal conditions. This educational change puts the responsibility on the fire department to quickly respond and extinguish the fire, but training people to sleep with the door closed and to keep the door closed if unable to evacuate will provide us with the additional time we need to arrive on scene and mitigate the problem.

Extinguish or Rescue?

This new approach to public education is going to require some significant changes in thought for our suppression members. Once we begin teaching citizens the importance of sleeping with closed doors, we need to ensure fire department personnel understand that upon arrival, if we’re alerted by a trapped resident, it’s critical to remind these people to keep the door closed. Based upon the research we’ve seen, many fires can be controlled with as little as 100 gallons of water, a task we can complete much faster than most could perform a ladder rescue. The first step could be to extinguish the fire, not rescue the resident. If we have the staffing to initiate rescue after deploying the first line, we should certainly do so, but if not, we have to slow down the fire to give firefighters the time necessary to perform the rescue.

These changes to public education must also extend to our dispatchers, so they can pass along door control advice during the initial 9-1-1 call. Likewise, if law enforcement officers or citizens are on scene prior to firefighters, they should be encouraged to look inside the door, where the majority of victims are found, but having looked, they must then shut the door to minimize the flow path that resarch shows will fuel the fire.

Teach it to the Masses

Research and data are impacting the ways we look at the fireground and how we implement our tactics. This same research should be influencing our public education. The data has shown on multiple occasions that a single door can provide several minutes of protection from a fire, as well as keep deadly smoke and gases out of a room while maintaining an acceptable level of oxygen. UL, NIST, ISFSI and others have done the research and provided the data, now it’s time to put it to work for the safety of the community.