Book Description

Past research has revealed socioeconomic factors, such as income and education attainment, are correlated with safety, in general, and personal safety, specifically. Narrowing the focus of safety to fire, research has also revealed the incidence of residential fires is correlated with socioeconomic factors such as family income, education attainment, and parental presence. Those fire studies involving more specific types of fires, such fires involving consumer products, household appliances, and other gas or electric products used in and around the home, have not studied the socioeconomic factors that might have been involved in those fires. Studies conducted in the past have revealed the quantity of these types of fires, but those studies did not attempt to determine if there were socioeconomic or climate factors involved in the fires. This research addressed this gap in the literature. This research concluded education had a significant inverse correlation with residential structure fires at the state level involving flammable liquids where the ignition source was a water heater. This research also concluded there was a significant correlation between parental status and residential structure fires involving flammable liquids. This research concluded income did not have a significant correlation with any of the fire variables using partial correlation. This study further concluded climate exhibited a significant inverse correlation with residential structure fires involving flammable liquids were the ignition source was a water heater or gas water heater. Prior research predicted climate (HDD) would have a significant correlation to the rate of fire incidents. This research concluded the climate exhibited an inverse correlation with some of the rates of fire incidents. It is recommended that education and the inspection of flammable liquid fire hazards should be improved in the home in the states having a low HDD such as in the southern United States. Those states with a low HDD exhibited a significant correlation between climate and the incidence of some types of fires. It is also recommended that fire prevention education be focused on single parent families. These recommendations are with the understanding that improved education and inspections may reduce the incidence of fires.