Fire outcomes in residential fires by general construction type : a retrospective analysis in British Columbia

Summary: "This report examines British Columbia (BC) residential building fires as a function of the general construction type. The fires that are examined were reported to the BC Office of the Fire Commissioner (OFC) between October 20 2008 and October 19 2013. The data included in this analysis was provided by 339 reporting agencies across the province, sampled from first nations band areas, non-municipal areas (with and without fire protection), and municipal areas. There were a total of 34,708 fire incidents reported during this period, of which only 11,875 were building fires attributable to a particular type of construction. Comparisons were drawn between the 11,875 fires that occurred in the five broad general construction type categories: (1) combustible construction - exposed wood joists / wood trusses (also called "combustible construction" throughout this report, n = 2,241), (2) protected combustible construction - wood joists / wood trusses protected by plaster/gyproc (also called "protected combustible construction" throughout this report, n = 7,808), (3) heavy timber construction (n = 226), (4) non-combustible construction - exposed steel joists / steel trusses (n = 507), and (5) protected non-combustible construction - protected steel or concrete (also called "protected non-combustible construction" throughout this report, n = 1,093). Across all these fires there were a total of 772 injuries and 107 deaths reported to the OFC"--Overview of this Research.