1. Comparing the performance of residential fire sprinklers with other life-safety technologies
- Author
-
David T. Butry
- Subjects
Value of Life ,Engineering ,Architectural engineering ,Injury control ,Accident prevention ,Cost-Benefit Analysis ,Poison control ,Human Factors and Ergonomics ,Fires ,Occupational safety and health ,Residence Characteristics ,Fire Extinguishing Systems ,Propensity Score ,Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality ,Smoke ,business.industry ,Environmental resource management ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Water ,Seat Belts ,United States ,Residential fire ,Benchmarking ,Socioeconomic Factors ,Safety ,Air Bags ,business - Abstract
Residential fire sprinklers have long proven themselves as life-safety technologies to the fire service community. Yet, about 1% of all one- and two-family dwelling fires occur in homes protected by sprinklers. It has been argued that measured sprinkler performance has ignored factors confounding the relationship between sprinkler use and performance. In this analysis, sprinkler performance is measured by comparing 'like' structure fires, while conditioning on smoke detection technology and neighborhood housing and socioeconomic conditions, using propensity score matching. Results show that residential fire sprinklers protect occupant and firefighter health and safety, and are comparable to other life-safety technologies. Language: en
- Published
- 2012
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