The effectiveness of specific fire prevention measures for different population groups

There are several different preventive measures that can be used to reduce the number of fire fatalities in residential buildings, but information on how effective different measures are for different groups are, however, lacking. As a result, general measures are often implemented on large portions of the total population, which is not as cost-effective as targeting certain measures for certain groups in the population. Therefore, an analysis of fire statistics and data based on fire investigations reports is performed in this paper in order to provide recommendations for how different preventive measures can be targeted effectively.The studied population is divided into various groups based on the type of measures that are effective for each group, and it is seen that the effectiveness of different preventive measures are depending on age, gender, occupancy type, whether an individual is living alone and whether the individual is a smoker. The effectiveness of the different studied measured are presented in terms of fraction of fatalities averted and the benefit per implemented measure. The results presented in this paper is novel and can be used to motivate targeted interventions and for cost-benefit analyses.