

The Miraculous Decline in Deaths by Fire - cwan
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/the-miraculous-decline-in-deaths-by-fire/

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patio11
_I am curious: what do you consider the most impressive but underappreciated
measures of progress in the past 100 years?_

I like measuring the old standbys: Pestilence, War, Famine, Death. All of them
are radically better, by any objective measure, in 2010 versus 1910,
_virtually regardless of where you look_.

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maxklein
There has also been a miraculous decline in deaths from scurvy.

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ludicast
Believe it or not, the FDNY is putting this information out for a political
reason.

They are trying to get away with closing 20 fire companies for 15 hour shifts
(at night). This is a cost-saving measure at a time when a lawsuit which
prevents hiring (<http://nydn.us/ag55My>) is making staffing difficult and
expensive.

What the FDNY is not letting you know that firefighters are responding to more
emergencies (medical, collapses, car-wrecks, etc.) than ever before. Also,
that the night tours are when most fire fatalities occur.

Sounds paranoid of me to see an agenda behind statistics, but this is a
situation with which I have much familiarity.

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mattdeboard
Gee, there's been a 90% decline in deaths by fire since we stopped using open
flames for light and heat? That's astounding.

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scrod
The graph shows a continuing decline, with a sizable difference between even
now and 1990. In fact, almost the entire trend since 1918 has been roughly
linear — hardly what your hypothesis would suggest.

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mattdeboard
I don't know about that. Looks to me, just from eyeballing it of course, that
there are two periods of logarithmic decay. The first in 1918-1969, then
another period of logarithmic decay until present day. A brief Google search
reveals some information that would seem to support there was a big change in
fire safety in the 1970s:

[http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/08/09_williamso...](http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/08/09_williamson.shtml)

>"[Williamson's contributions] helped make the late 1970s the high-water mark
of concerted fire safety science research in the United States, a level which
has not subsequently been exceeded."

These contributions began in the early 1970s beginning with the
classifications of plastics and their flammabilities. The overall tone of the
article (admittedly, it is an obit for a noted physicist in the fire science
field so it's bound to be flattering) indicates that the decade starting in
1970 began a sea change in fire safety and great gains in fire science.

That's my point. Big technological advances increase survivability and
decrease risk. I don't get the round-eyed, slack-jawed wonder at the fact that
there has been a huge drop in fire-related deaths in 89 years. Moving from
open flames to electricity then improving building codes etc., provided two
huge catalysts to change. Given that drastic technological change was the
constant of the 20th century, this Freakonomics post just seems silly.

(As another responder said -- there's also been a dramatic decrease in cases
of scurvy over the same timeframe. Similarly a "duh" revelation. I bet a graph
of cases of kuru and measles would look about like the fire one.)

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Nick_C
I wonder what caused the spike during the war years, 39-43? Lower factory
standards due to the war effort? I have no idea. Anyone got a clue?

