Factors contributing to survival and evacuation in residential fires involving older adults in Sweden

• It has been known for a long time that older adults suffer a significantly higher risk of dying in residential fires compared to younger people. The characteristics of these fatal fires and the fatalities are also well known. However, less is known about older adults who survive fires and how they differ from those who die. This distinction can be assumed to be of great importance when designing effective prevention efforts. In the current paper, factors that contribute to survival of older adults (65+) has been investigated together with factors that contribute to different modes of evacuation (e.g. evacuation assisted by neighbours) based, primarily, on incident reports. The results show that fewer than half of the victims (39%) evacuated independently and many rely on evacuation assisted by neighbours (18%), first-responders (27%) or homecare personnel (8%). Living in urban areas was found to increase the odds of survival. Based on the results from the analysis of evacuation, this is likely due to a combination of proximity to neighbours and a short response time. For successful evacuation by non-firefighters, the fires often had to be confined to the object of ignition while the rescue service could evacuate from larger fires.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Annan samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Other Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Evacuation

Fire fatality

Non-fatal fire injury

Rescue services

Residential fires

Fires

Housing

'current

Fire fatalities

First responders

Homecare

Incident reports

Older adults

Young peoples

Emergency services

Public Health Science

Folkhälsovetenskap

Evacuation

Fire fatality

Non-fatal fire injury

Rescue services

Residential fires

risk-factors

injuries

fatality

deaths

Engineering

Materials Science

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)