The impact of state fire safe cigarette policies on fire fatalities, injuries, and incidents

Cigarettes are a leading cause of civilian deaths in home fires. Over the last decade, state fire service leaders and allied interest groups succeeded in persuading state lawmakers to require manufacturers to sell only low-ignition strength or “fire safe” cigarettes as a strategy to reduce these fatalities and the injuries and losses that stem from them. This article examines whether the states’ fire safe cigarette laws actually helped to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce the incidence of home fires ignited by cigarettes left unattended by smokers. Controlling for the effects of key demographic, social, economic, and housing variables, this study finds that the states’ fire-safe cigarette policies had significant impacts on reducing the rate of smoking-related civilian fire deaths and the incidence of fires started by tobacco products. The findings also suggest that the states’ fire safe cigarette policies may have helped to reduce the rate of smoking-related fire injuries. The study shows that collective actions by leaders in the fire service across the states can result in meaningful policy change that protects lives and advances public safety even when a political consensus for action is absent at the national level.

Preventing deaths and injuries from house fires: a cost–benefit analysis of a community-based smoke alarm installation programme

BackgroundOperation Installation (OI), a community-based smoke alarm installation programme in Dallas, Texas, targets houses in high-risk urban census tracts. Residents of houses that received OI installation (or programme houses) had 68% fewer medically treated house fire injuries (non-fatal and fatal) compared with residents of non-programme houses over an average of 5.2 years of follow-up during an effectiveness evaluation conducted from 2001 to 2011.ObjectiveTo estimate the cost–benefit of OI.MethodsA mathematical model incorporated programme cost and effectiveness data as directly observed in OI. The estimated cost per smoke alarm installed was based on a retrospective analysis of OI expenditures from administrative records, 2006–2011. Injury incidence assumptions for a population that had the OI programme compared with the same population without the OI programme was based on the previous OI effectiveness study, 2001–2011. Unit costs for medical care and lost productivity associated with fire injuries were from a national public database.ResultsFrom a combined payers' perspective limited to direct programme and medical costs, the estimated incremental cost per fire injury averted through the OI installation programme was $128,800 (2013 US$). When a conservative estimate of lost productivity among victims was included, the incremental cost per fire injury averted was negative, suggesting long-term cost savings from the programme. The OI programme from 2001 to 2011 resulted in an estimated net savings of $3.8 million, or a $3.21 return on investment for every dollar spent on the programme using a societal cost perspective.ConclusionsCommunity smoke alarm installation programmes could be cost-beneficial in high-fire-risk neighbourhoods.