THE POTENTIAL BENEFIT OF A HOME FIRE SAFETY INTERVENTION DURING EMERGENCY MEDICAL-SERVICES CALLS

Objective: To determine how often house fires occur at 1- and 2-family dwellings visited previously by emergency medical services (EMS) pers onnel and whether these visits were missed opportunities for a point-o f-contact home fire safety intervention, Methods: A retrospective, con secutive, case series analysis of all Milwaukee Fire Department alarm responses during 1994 was performed, Measurements included date of ser vice, type of response, property type, dollar loss estimate, number of injuries and fatalities, cause of alarm, and presence of an operation al smoke detector, Descriptive, chi(2), and relative risk statistics w ere used to describe the relationship between EMS responses and fire r esponses at 1- and 2-family dwellings, Results: The Milwaukee Fire Dep artment dispatched 94,378 requests for service to 43,556 addresses, 16 ,150 addresses generated multiple requests; 7.2% (1,162/16,150) were f or an ''alarm of fire'' response [relative risk 1.53 (95% CI: 1.69-1.9 9) for addresses with multiple requests vs those with a single request for service], Most [62% (721/1,162)] of the addresses were visited by EMS personnel prior to the alarm; 28% (205/721) were 1- and 2-family dwellings, A mean of 1.8 (376/205) EMS responses occurred prior to the ''alarm of fire'' response; 121 addresses received 1 response, 46 rec eived 2, 18 received 3, and 20 received greater than or equal to 4 res ponses. Of 169 addresses with complete data, there was a total fire do llar loss of $1,963,020 (1994) along with 32 injuries and 0 fatalities . While 47% (80/169) of the 1- and 2-family dwellings had a smoke dete ctor present, only 17% (29/169) of the dwellings had an operational sm oke detector. Conclusions: A point-of-contact home fire safety interve ntion appears of potential benefit for frequent users of EMS cafe. Det ermination of the presence of an operational smoke detector in 1- and 2-family dwellings may be a useful injury prevention act during such E MS calls.