> Why can't we have both multiple staircases and fire-retardant construction?
If your goal is to save lives, there are other things you can regulate that are orders of magnitude more cost-effective. Where the expected price of each saved life is just millions instead of billions.
When there was another discussion on this topic a while ago, I spent some time reading about fire deaths in Finland. Finland is a country with more fire deaths per capita than most Western countries. Partly due to attitudes, and partly because of the prevalence of saunas, which are almost as big fire hazards as kitchens.
What I found was that fire deaths that could have been prevented by a second staircase are extremely rare. When people die in a fire in an apartment building, it's almost always in the unit the fire started. Either the people didn't notice it quickly enough, or the fire blocked the front door.
"What I found was that fire deaths that could have been prevented by a second staircase are extremely rare."
I agree. At least in my limited experience, it seems a lot of the deaths in the US are related to either intoxication or sleeping. In these states, it's common for the person to have never even been aware of the danger.
Yup. When I last looked into it the overwhelming amount of fire deaths were squatters lighting fires in derelict homes, and were not in a state of mind to escape.
Better homeless shelter policies & mental health support would be wildly more effective at preventing fire deaths than code enforcement.
> At least in my limited experience, it seems a lot of the deaths in the US are related to either intoxication or sleeping. In these states, it's common for the person to have never even been aware of the danger.
That won't work as evidence that US fire policies aren't helping. You need data from somewhere where those policies aren't in place, like presumably Finland.
So you wan…. What? Data on the number of fires that resulted in people dying in their sleep and therefore would not have benefitted from multiple egresses?
The data you are looking for literally does not exist. That’s not something people closely monitor.
I'm just saying that the tend the other person saw in Finland has logical support here. It can be evidence of how effective a policy is for specific scenarios (models). If someone is is not alert to the danger, then the means of escape are logically moot in those situations.
Policies that would help save lives are sprinklers in all houses. This policy is controversial due to the cost and maintenance involved. But the very scenario that has brought this about was a Maryland politician's son burnt down his house and died while passed out drunk. Now that state has a law requiring sprinklers.
> I'm just saying that the tend the other person saw in Finland has logical support here. It can be evidence of how effective a policy is for specific scenarios (models). If someone is is not alert to the danger, then the means of escape are logically moot in those situations.
No, you didn't identify any logical support. If the American policy ensures that people who are aware of the danger always survive, then (a) that is what the policy is supposed to do, and (b) it will guarantee that American fire deaths all happen to people who were not aware of the danger.
Given that, if the policy worked as advertised, it would guarantee exactly the observation that you see, it cannot be the case that this observation is evidence against the effectiveness of the policy.
I didn't say anything explict about the US staircase policy. All I said is that the trends on fire deaths the other person identified in Finland apply here in my experience, and that additional stair cases won't help those deaths. The logical part is that if you're unaware of danger (asleep/passed out), you can't take action to avoid it. The policies that would help in those situations are sprinklers, but there's some controversy on them being mandated.
If your goal is to save lives, there are other things you can regulate that are orders of magnitude more cost-effective. Where the expected price of each saved life is just millions instead of billions.
When there was another discussion on this topic a while ago, I spent some time reading about fire deaths in Finland. Finland is a country with more fire deaths per capita than most Western countries. Partly due to attitudes, and partly because of the prevalence of saunas, which are almost as big fire hazards as kitchens.
What I found was that fire deaths that could have been prevented by a second staircase are extremely rare. When people die in a fire in an apartment building, it's almost always in the unit the fire started. Either the people didn't notice it quickly enough, or the fire blocked the front door.