- Author
- Bounagui, A. | Benichou, N. | Victor, E.
- Title
- Residential Fire Scenario Analysis in Ontario 1995-2003.
- Coporate
- National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
- Report
- IRC-RR-173, September 20, 2004, 9 p.
- Keywords
- scenarios | building fires | residential buildings | fire statistics | fire fatalities | ignition source | time | death
- Identifiers
- areas of origin; material first ignited; level of origin and time of occurence; condition of casualty
- Abstract
- This report identifies some very important features of fatal fires in Ontario. It locates, for example, the victims' position in the houses and tentatively explains why the victims were unable to save themselves. It provides sufficient details to indicate research that can be undertaken to help make homes a safer place to live. Based on the Ontario data for the period 1995-2003, residential fires occurred most frequently in the kitchen and cooking areas. However, fatal fires are more frequent in living rooms (45.1% of fatalities) and are in general caused by a smoker's materials such as cigarettes, cigars, matches, lighters, etc. used in conjunction with smoking (37.4% of fire deaths). When a deadly fire breaks out, most of the time, upholstered furniture is the first material to be ignited (26% of fire deaths). The most probable levels for fatal fires to occur in Ontario houses are on the ground floor (59 % of deaths), the second stories (17.3% of deaths), the basements (14.8% of deaths), and the third floors (3.9 % of deaths). Fire kills because, in part, the victims are either too young or too old to react quickly and effectively to a fire emergency.