- Author
- Hall, J. R., Jr.
- Title
- Children Playing With Fire.
- Coporate
- National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM: NFPA One Stop Data Shop, 1 Batterymarch Park, P.O. Box 9101, Quincy, MA 02269-9101. Telephone: 617-984-7540, Fax: 617-984-7478, Email: [email protected]. Website: http://www.nfpa.org
- Keywords
- children | fire statistics | home fires | heat sources | arson
- Identifiers
- defining fire play; patterns of child-playing fires; what can be done about child playing fires; calculating national estimates
- Abstract
- In 2002, an estimated 13,900 child-playing structure fires were reported in the U.S., with associated losses of 210 civilian deaths, 1,250 civilian injuries, and $339 million in direct damage. Another 200 confined structure fires starting with trash are estimated as well, but they add no losses at the level of rounding selected. The figures for 2002 structure fires, deaths, and injuries are the lowest ever recorded. Note that it is much more difficult to select the most appropriate analysis approach (e.g., approach to allocating unknowns) after 1998, due to changes in NFIRS Version 5.0. If a simpler and more traditional analysis approach is used, the numbers are even lower and by quite a lot. However, it is also possible that definitional changes in the code for fires involving playing, as well as changes in the relationship of this cause to other causes, like intentional, are also factors in the apparent decline, which may be less than either the stated results or the simpler approach indicate. Most child-playing home fires are started with lighters or matches. The decline in childplaying lighter fires and losses, which coincided with the introduction in 1994 of the CPSC child-resistant lighter standard, has coincided in time with an equally large and sustained decline in child-playing home match fires and losses. One reason may be that the trend for child-playing match fires was already declining before 1995, while childplaying lighter fires had been increasing for several years before 1995. Another factor may be a generally heightened awareness of the child-playing fire problem. It may reflect growing success in public fire safety education programs, which provided more attention to child supervision and other steps to reduce the child-playing fire problem, and did so at the same time that the lighter standard was being introduced. It is also possible that there is significant miscoding of fire play with lighters as fire play with matches - or that there used to be. If there has been a shift from matches to lighters, a point on which we have no information, that could have played a role in the opposing trends seen before 1995. The items ignited by home fire play are principally mattresses, bedding, or clothing, followed by upholstered furniture, trash, and papers. The majority of child-playing home fires begin in the bedroom. The median age of children who start reported fires by playing is 5 years old, compared to a median age of 4 years old for fatal victims and a median age in the late teens for nonfatal injuries.