hkskyline
March 2nd, 2006, 12:57 AM
Context
Some cities have enacted laws requiring smoke detectors be installed in every home. While smoke detectors will save lives regardless of a rural or urban setting, in an urban context, having a working smoke alarm may reduce the possibility of a large-scale building fire with numerous casualties.
Does your city have such a law in place?
Govt hopes smoke detectors will reduce fire deaths
Okihiro Kamiizawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
21 February 2006
Daily Yomiuri
This winter's rise in house fire deaths is yet another reason to equip homes with smoke detectors and fire alarms, a requirement to be included in the revised Fire Service Law in June.
On Jan. 4, a fifth-grader was killed by a home fire in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture. Two senior citizens died about a week later in a blaze in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture.
According to a Fire and Disaster Management Agency survey, 157 people were killed in fires during the first 18 days of this year. This number is 50 percent higher than it has been in the past three years, during which the death toll stood between 104 and 115 for the same period.
The number of casualties due to home fires have been on the rise since 1998. Excluding suicidal arson, the toll for January-September 2005 rose to 839, up 69 from the same period in 2004.
"The death toll for 2005 is expected to be the worst since 1979, when the agency began keeping statistics," an official from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.
About 60 percent of the deaths were the result of taking too long to evacuate. The agency links this problem to the aging population, as half of the victims were 65 or older.
Although the situation differs from person to person, elderly people often are slow to notice a fire due to their weakened powers of sight, hearing and smell. Their physical weakness also means it takes them longer to escape from burning buildings. And some senior citizens tend to live in cluttered rooms, inhibiting their quick exit from the building.
The rising death toll has been linked to an increase in the number of three-story wooden houses, which became legal when the Building Standards Law was relaxed in 1987 to allow such houses to be built in otherwise heavily regulated districts.
About 120,000 three-story houses were constructed over the five years through fiscal 2004.
"It's difficult to evacuate a three-story house quickly as they have only one staircase," said Yoshifumi Omiya, a professor at Tokyo University of Science.
In November 2004, a man who tried to flee from a fire in a three-story house in Tochigi Prefecture fell from a third-floor window to his death.
"The rise in the death toll can be attributed to the increase in flammable petrochemical materials found in daily life, such as plastics and synthetic fibers," said Tokiyoshi Yamada of National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster, an independent administrative corporation in Mitaka, Tokyo.
The agency, which is run by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, and other researchers are counting on fire alarms and smoke detectors to reduce the number of deaths.
About 6,000 people died in house fires in the United States in the late 1970s, when only 30 percent to 40 percent of homes had smoke detectors. By 2002, however, more than 90 percent of houses had smoke detectors, helping reduce the death toll to about 2,700.
Currently in Japan, apartment blocks with more than 500 square meters of floor space are required to have an automatic fire alarm system.
The revised Fire Service Law also will extend the requirement to houses whose construction begins in June. It is likely that following a two- to five-year grace period, already existing houses will be subject to local government ordinances.
Though violators will not be penalized, local governments will inspect newly built houses for smoke alarms prior to allowing the owners to move in.
The problem, however, is complex for already existing houses.
Arakawa Ward, Tokyo--which has areas dense with wooden houses--has allocated 57.6 million yen in its new fiscal budget to supply alarms free of charge in hope of preventing fires from spreading through the neighborhood.
The central government plans to use the nation's volunteer firefighters to promote the installation of fire alarms.
Some cities have enacted laws requiring smoke detectors be installed in every home. While smoke detectors will save lives regardless of a rural or urban setting, in an urban context, having a working smoke alarm may reduce the possibility of a large-scale building fire with numerous casualties.
Does your city have such a law in place?
Govt hopes smoke detectors will reduce fire deaths
Okihiro Kamiizawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
21 February 2006
Daily Yomiuri
This winter's rise in house fire deaths is yet another reason to equip homes with smoke detectors and fire alarms, a requirement to be included in the revised Fire Service Law in June.
On Jan. 4, a fifth-grader was killed by a home fire in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture. Two senior citizens died about a week later in a blaze in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture.
According to a Fire and Disaster Management Agency survey, 157 people were killed in fires during the first 18 days of this year. This number is 50 percent higher than it has been in the past three years, during which the death toll stood between 104 and 115 for the same period.
The number of casualties due to home fires have been on the rise since 1998. Excluding suicidal arson, the toll for January-September 2005 rose to 839, up 69 from the same period in 2004.
"The death toll for 2005 is expected to be the worst since 1979, when the agency began keeping statistics," an official from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.
About 60 percent of the deaths were the result of taking too long to evacuate. The agency links this problem to the aging population, as half of the victims were 65 or older.
Although the situation differs from person to person, elderly people often are slow to notice a fire due to their weakened powers of sight, hearing and smell. Their physical weakness also means it takes them longer to escape from burning buildings. And some senior citizens tend to live in cluttered rooms, inhibiting their quick exit from the building.
The rising death toll has been linked to an increase in the number of three-story wooden houses, which became legal when the Building Standards Law was relaxed in 1987 to allow such houses to be built in otherwise heavily regulated districts.
About 120,000 three-story houses were constructed over the five years through fiscal 2004.
"It's difficult to evacuate a three-story house quickly as they have only one staircase," said Yoshifumi Omiya, a professor at Tokyo University of Science.
In November 2004, a man who tried to flee from a fire in a three-story house in Tochigi Prefecture fell from a third-floor window to his death.
"The rise in the death toll can be attributed to the increase in flammable petrochemical materials found in daily life, such as plastics and synthetic fibers," said Tokiyoshi Yamada of National Research Institute of Fire and Disaster, an independent administrative corporation in Mitaka, Tokyo.
The agency, which is run by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, and other researchers are counting on fire alarms and smoke detectors to reduce the number of deaths.
About 6,000 people died in house fires in the United States in the late 1970s, when only 30 percent to 40 percent of homes had smoke detectors. By 2002, however, more than 90 percent of houses had smoke detectors, helping reduce the death toll to about 2,700.
Currently in Japan, apartment blocks with more than 500 square meters of floor space are required to have an automatic fire alarm system.
The revised Fire Service Law also will extend the requirement to houses whose construction begins in June. It is likely that following a two- to five-year grace period, already existing houses will be subject to local government ordinances.
Though violators will not be penalized, local governments will inspect newly built houses for smoke alarms prior to allowing the owners to move in.
The problem, however, is complex for already existing houses.
Arakawa Ward, Tokyo--which has areas dense with wooden houses--has allocated 57.6 million yen in its new fiscal budget to supply alarms free of charge in hope of preventing fires from spreading through the neighborhood.
The central government plans to use the nation's volunteer firefighters to promote the installation of fire alarms.