Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

The Victoria University Coroner’s Accident Fire Fatality Database was created to provide a comprehensive record of all adult fire deaths that occurred in Victoria, Australia between 1998 and 2005 (n = 101). This study uses this database to examine whether the mentally ill (MI) victims (n = 55) exhibited different risk characteristics compared to the non-mentally ill (NMI) victims (n = 46). When relative risk ratios were calculated it was found that the MI were 7.9 times more likely than the NMI to have combined alcohol and drugs prior to their death and 5.9 times more likely to have a history of careless smoking. Eight other risk variables were also found to differ significantly between the two groups. This is the first study to show that the mentally ill have a higher fire fatality risk than the non-mentally ill, and this risk is particularly associated with being impaired by both alcohol and drugs prior to death and a history of careless smoking.