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Show FIRE PROTECTION: THE FIRST STEP Private dwellings have the worst fire loss record of any building type in the United States. Each year more than 300,000 Americans are injured, in-jured, and nearly three billion bil-lion dollars worth of property prop-erty is destroyed by fire. Sixty eight percent of all fatalities, 57 of all injuries and 43 of all property losses occur in residential fires. As more and more families fami-lies move to multi-family housing where they are subject sub-ject to fires in the neighboring neighbor-ing units, the potential exists for even greater losses. One way to protect your family from fire is to carefully care-fully choose the type of building you live in. A study of 27,000 fires by researchers research-ers at the University of Maryland concluded that the chance of fire damage in buildings meeting fire resistive resis-tive building code requirements require-ments is at least 30 less than in ordinary buildings. In some areas fire code requirements are being relaxed re-laxed if buildings have sprinklers or smoke detectors. detec-tors. While sprinklers and smoke detectors may help protect building occupants should a fire occur, the University of Maryland study raises doubts about their reliability. In one out of seven instances where the fire should have activated the system, sprinklers failed to operate. Smoke detectors did not work in a third of the fires which should have set them off. When you look for an apartment, condominium or town house, be sure that the walls and floors between you and your neighbors are constructed of fire resistant materials such as concrete. It's the best first step you can take to protect your family and property from fire. |