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Each year in Canada, building fires cause hundreds of deaths, thousands of injuries and billions of dollars’ worth of property damage. Canada has the second highest fire death rate among 15 industrialized countries. In Canada in 1988, about 72% of fire deaths and 40 percent of fire property losses occurred in small buildings, such as one- and two-family homes, apartment buildings and hotels/ motels. The 1989 fire statistics for Alberta indicate that about 70% of fire deaths and 51 percent of fire property losses occurred in small buildings.3 What can we learn from these numbers? If we are really interested in reducing fire deaths and property losses, we must focus our efforts on fire safety in small buildings. This paper addresses four main aspects of reducing fire hazards:
- controlling fire within a compartment,
- controlling the spread of fire between compartments through interior separations,
- controlling the spread of fire between compartments through openings in exterior walls,
- providing early warning to building occupants.