Domestic fire risk: a narrative review of social science literature and implications for further research

Abstract

In this paper, we make the case for more social science research into fire incidents and fire-related risk behaviour. Unlike other vulnerabilities, such as crime, illness or risk-associated activities such as smoking, or accident avoidance, remarkably little research has focused on this area. This is perhaps surprising given the propensity for fire, its emotional, social and economic impacts, and evidence that fires and fire victims are not equally distributed across socio-demographic or geographical domains. In making our case, we outline: recent numbers and trends in incidents in the UK, focusing on domestic incidents and recent policy developments affecting fire and rescue services. Next, we review the social-science based literature on fire incidents, suggesting that while this offers useful insight, much more needs to be done to develop a rigorous evidence base. While we would not want to dismiss or downplay existing social science contributions, our contention is that a considerable number of opportunities exist for further work in this area. Consequently, we propose a number of ways in which popular ideas about risk theory can be applied to a domestic fire context and raise a number of questions that social scientists are well positioned to contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of domestic fire incidents and associated risks.

Keywords:

• domestic fire
• fire risk
• risk perceptions
• risk inequalities
• house fires
• fire and rescue services

Notes

1. Key words searched for were: domest*AND fire*; risk* AND fire*; risk AND fire AND human behaviour; fire AND behave* and; home AND fire. We also conducted manual searches of ‘Fire Safety Journal’; ‘Journal of Occupational Accidents’, the Health and Safety Executive Research Report database and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accident website.