Elsevier

Fire Safety Journal

Volume 119, January 2021, 103263
Fire Safety Journal

Review
Analysis of the effectiveness of the smoke alarm obligation – Experiences from practice

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2020.103263Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Regarding the fire risk, homes are a key aspect. To react to this, the smoke alarm obligation (SAO) has been introduced mandatory in several countries.

  • Analysis of the situation in Germany is informative as the SAO was introduced in the 16 individual German federal states at different times.

  • This study examines the effectiveness of the SAO by differentiation of the federal states according to the regulations for new and existing buildings.

  • The study derives the risk-based effect in the individual federal states, for Germany in total and the number of saved lives due this measure.

  • In other countries, this experience can be used in discussions on controlling the risk key aspect on homes and assessing the effectiveness.

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of the smoke alarm obligation to reduce the fire risk in residential/domestic applications. This aspiration to improve fire safety has led to the introduction of the smoke alarm obligation into the building codes of several countries. The example chosen for analysis was the situation in Germany, because this case is to be considered highly informative as the mandatory installation of smoke alarms was introduced in Germany at different times in the 16 individual federal states—with detailed and clarified data providing very good analysis conditions from a statistical point of view. To analyse the effectiveness of this measure, the fire fatality risks (at home) before and after the introduction of the obligation to install smoke alarms are compared to one another. The change in risk provides information about the risk-related effectiveness of this measure. In addition to the incremental introduction of smoke alarm devices to new buildings, this procedure is also carried out for existing buildings. As the analysis shows, many lives are saved by this fire safety measure. The challenge of the analysis is to put clear data in the right context. This must be checked when the procedure is transferred to other countries.

Keywords

Fire protection
Fire detection
Statistics
Effectiveness analysis
Smoke alarm obligation

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