Analysis of the effectiveness of the smoke alarm obligation – Experiences from practice

This paper examines the effectiveness of the smoke alarm obligation to reduce the fire risk in residential/domestic applications. This aspiration to improve fire safety has led to the introduction of the smoke alarm obligation into the building codes of several countries. The example chosen for analysis was the situation in Germany, because this case is to be considered highly informative as the mandatory installation of smoke alarms was introduced in Germany at different times in the 16 individual federal states—with detailed and clarified data providing very good analysis conditions from a statistical point of view. To analyse the effectiveness of this measure, the fire fatality risks (at home) before and after the introduction of the obligation to install smoke alarms are compared to one another. The change in risk provides information about the risk-related effectiveness of this measure. In addition to the incremental introduction of smoke alarm devices to new buildings, this procedure is also carried out for existing buildings. As the analysis shows, many lives are saved by this fire safety measure. The challenge of the analysis is to put clear data in the right context. This must be checked when the procedure is transferred to other countries.