ABSTRACT
Deaths in fires are the third leading cause of death in domestic fatalities among children.1 In the USA someone dies in a fire about every 162 minutes and someone is injured in a fire every 32 minutes, and many of these victims are children;2
the USA ranges only sixth in the incidence of deaths from fires among the 25 developed countries for which statistics are available.3 In retrospect, many of these deaths are found to have been preventable4 and this raises a substantial public health problem.5-7 Financial and insurance losses are also very substantial.
