Citation

Henderson J, Mackay S. Fire Safety J. 2009; 44(1): 131-134.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.firesaf.2008.05.001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

aDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, 33 Russell Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2S1 bDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5T 1R8 Reducing access to ignition materials such as matches and lighters is a standard part of most interventions to reduce juvenile firesetting, but children of all ages are still permitted to purchase ignition materials, such as matches and lighters, from retail outlets. This brief research report describes the costs and consequences of the misuse of retail-obtained ignition materials by children and youth. This study shows that almost a fifth (18%) of children and adolescents referred to a specialized juvenile fire-starting program had used ignition materials that they obtained from retail outlets in their fire-starting. Moreover, their fire-starting was extensive and had caused or had the potential to cause significant injuries. In addition, their fire incidents were costly in terms of damage and community resources. Implications for fire safety education for retailers, further research, and legislative action are discussed. Keywords: Fire prevention; Firesetting; Fire-starting; Ignition materials; Access restriction; Legislation The dangerousness of fire involvement by children and adolescents is magnified by its high life-time prevalence (e.g., 68% of high school students (MacKay S, Boak A, Henderson J, et al., in preparation)); 50% of school-aged children [4], its association with other behavioral and emotional difficulties [5], [6], [7] and [8], its persistence even after intervention [9] and [10] and its importance as a predictor of adult arson [11]. Given this context, most North American communities offer intervention for this behavior with the prevailing model of service delivery involving fire service personnel providing fire safety education, conducting firesetting risk assessments and/or making referrals to mental health services [9], [12] and [13]. In addition, there are clinic-based programs offered by mental health professionals, which may address fire-specific factors, such as fire interest, fire safety knowledge and fire competence, as well as more general variables, such as family dysfunction, poor social competence, and anger management [6], [10], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17] and [18]. More recently, there are some collaborative models of care that incorporate mental health and fire service approaches into coordinated intervention programs [16], [19] and [20]. Notably, family-based interventions for juvenile firesetting typically emphasize ensuring that children and adolescents do not possess and are not able to access ignition materials, such as matches and lighters [4], [10], [16], [21], [22] and [23]. Despite the recognized importance of access restriction in reducing juvenile fire-starting, shifts in societal knowledge, attitudes and behavior appear to be lagging behind. For example, ignition materials continue to be made attractive to children and youth through the placement of popular sports or other insignia on ignition materials and through designs that resemble toys, guns or other attractive objects. In addition, ignition materials in retail outlets are often displayed in locations that are readily accessible to children, including in retail outlets that are frequented by children, such as discount (or ‘dollar’) stores. Interestingly, while legislation has been used to regulate various aspects of ignition materials related to child safety, including implementation of legislation requiring child safety locks on lighters in many jurisdictions (e.g., United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom), very few jurisdictions, if any, have legislation that restricts the sale of ignition materials to minors. Essentially, children and adolescents of any age are able to purchase matches and lighters from retail outlets. Accordingly, the present paper attempts to highlight the importance of this issue by providing descriptive data regarding the costs and consequences of children and youth misusing ignition materials that they have obtained from retail outlets. Sample: This paper reports on data from a sub-sample of fire-starting children and youth (N=45) who had obtained their fire-starting materials from retail outlets. The sample was drawn from a larger sample of 275 children (N=167 aged 4–12 yr) and adolescents (N=108 aged 13–17 yr) who were referred to The Arson Prevention Program for Children (TAPP-C), a specialized assessment and intervention program for fire-involved children and youth aged 2–17 yr, and their families [16], [20] and [24]. TAPP-C is situated in a children's outpatient program in a large psychiatric teaching hospital in Toronto, Canada. All participants provided consent (or assent where appropriate) to allow their clinical information to be used for research purposes. Consistent with other studies of juvenile fire involvement [9], the participants in the original larger sample were primarily male (91%) and had a mean age of 11.13 yr. Sixty-six percent of children were residing with at least one biological/adoptive parent at the time of their participation and 36% lived in household with annual incomes of less than $20,000. The majority of children were referred to TAPP-C by other children's mental health agencies (34%) or by child welfare agencies (25%). Measures: Information was gathered using TAPP-C's standardized protocol that includes structured interviews and questionnaires to evaluate fire-related history and behavior, as well as general functioning [16], [20] and [24]. Specific items addressed where and how children obtained the ignition materials they had used in their fire-starting episodes, as well as other parameters of their fire-starting histories. For example, parents were asked “What has burned as a result of [your child] starting something on fire?” and “Has your child ever burned or injured himself or someone else as a result of his fire involvement?” Parents were also asked to provide or estimate the dollar value of any substantial property damage. As is typical of data collected in clinical settings, data are not available for every participant for every variable. As a result, in the reported analyses the sample size varies slightly from analysis to analysis. Accordingly, despite the small sample size, percentages are reported for ease of communicating the findings. Analyses revealed that 18% of children and youth seen by TAPP-C had used ignition materials that they obtained from stores in their fire-starting (N=45/253, data were not available for 22 cases: 42 males, 3 females). In most of these cases (80%), the children and youth purchased the materials. In other cases, the materials were taken/stolen (13%), “found” in the store (2%), given to the youth by the shopkeeper (2%), or the context was unknown (2%). Although children as young 8 yr of age were reported to have used matches or lighters that they independently obtained from stores, using retail-obtained ignition materials was associated with older age (mean=13.27 yr; N=12 children, N=33 adolescents). Examination of data from fire-starters who used retail-obtained ignition materials revealed that their fire-starting histories ranged from 1 to 60 episodes (mean=9.21 episodes), although this is an underestimate, as it does not include 8 youth (or 17% of the sample) who had “too many episodes to count,” or hundreds–thousands of episodes. The following percentages of participants (out of 40–45 due to missing data points) had histories of fire involvement that included the following targets of fire-starting: paper/leaves/garbage (84%), small objects (e.g., toys) (42%), large objects (e.g., furniture) (32%), buildings (5%), exploding devices (4%), and individuals’ hair or clothing (12%). Thirteen fire-starters had been injured as a result of their fire-starting and 5 had been involved in incidents resulting in injuries to others. The majority (N=10) of youth with injuries resulting from their fire involvement had received minor burns that did not involve medical treatment, although 2 of the 5 youth who had caused injuries to others had caused injuries that were confirmed to have required medical treatment, including one instance of extended hospitalization. The majority of fire-starting youth with minor injuries had received multiple burns (N=9), most typically to their hands (N=7) and face or hair (N=7). For example, 2 youth were injured after igniting flammable fluids in their mouths and blowing out flames, resulting in burns to their mouths, lips, and for one youth, burned eyelashes, eyebrows and hair. In addition to actual injuries, many participants had engaged in fire-starting that had significant potential to cause injury. For example, 40% of participants had used accelerants such as gasoline or an aerosol (e.g., air freshener) in their fire-starting. In addition, 29% of participants had engaged in fire-starting in their family homes while other family members slept. Moreover, these children lived with up to 9 siblings and 35% had 2 or more siblings. Notably, a fifth (20%) of participants had engaged in fire-starting in enclosed spaces, such as closets, where the likelihood of spread and entrapment is high. In addition, 79% of children had fire-related episodes involving participation by other children and 32% had engaged in fire-starting at school. Not only did these episodes present significant injury risk, but they also resulted in considerable property damage. Indeed, most fire-starters (72%) had been involved in episodes that spread beyond what they intended to burn and 35% had been involved in incidents requiring fire department responses. Fifty-one percent of participants (N=23) were reported to have started a fire in the past 12 months that caused significant property damage, although estimated dollar losses were only provided for incidents started by 14 of these 23 participants. Based on these incidents, the total damages estimated exceeded $660,000. Notably, $260,000 of damages resulted from school-based incidents. In addition to damage-related costs, fire-starting involving retail-obtained ignition materials resulted in significant community resource costs, including significant involvement by fire (60%) and police (53%) services. Indeed, 78% of participants with police contact who were eligible to be charged (i.e., 12 yr of age or older) did indeed receive charges under young offender legislation. Fire-starting involving retail-obtained ignition materials occurred in almost one-fifth (18%) of children and adolescents referred to TAPP-C. The actual costs and potential consequences of this fire-starting were significant. Not only had these children and youth engaged in many episodes of fire-starting, but these incidents had already caused or had the potential to cause significant injuries to the firesetters and others. In addition, their fire incidents were costly, both in terms of damages and the utilization of community resources they entailed. While interventions to address childhood fire-starting have historically included family-level interventions to reduce access to ignition materials, such as matches and lighters in the home, it appears that little consideration has been given to the potential benefits of community-level efforts to restrict access to ignition materials by children and youth. Indeed, minors are permitted to purchase ignition materials from retail outlets, despite having few legitimate reasons to do so particularly given legislative changes prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to minors. Given the findings of this study, the appropriateness of having matches and lighters available for purchase by children and youth through retail outlets needs to be reconsidered. As has been demonstrated in various areas of behavior, community-level interventions regarding access restriction can significantly impact child and youth behavior. For example, enacting firearm access prevention legislation (i.e., safe gun storage laws) is associated with reductions in youth suicide by firearms [25]. Similarly, legislation to limit the sale of cigarettes to minors has been found to be associated with reductions in smoking by children and adolescents [26] and [27]. Interestingly, it is not yet clear what the active ingredient is in the observed effects of access restriction legislation. It may be that these effects reflect actual changes in access to the prohibited materials. Alternatively, they may reflect the impact of changes in the perceived availability of the prohibited materials and thus in youth's willingness to attempt to access them. Indeed, both of these possible mechanisms have been shown to impact behavior. For example, firearm access restriction efforts that result in real reductions in access to firearms are associated with reductions in unintentional and self-inflicted firearm injuries amongst young people [28]. Similarly, perceived difficulty in obtaining various substances including alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco has been found to be associated with lower use of those substances amongst adolescents [29] and [30]. Moreover, it may be the case that community-level access restriction interventions facilitate the shifting of social norms to discourage the behavior of concern. For example, it has been suggested that tobacco access laws help create social norms within communities that deter children and young adolescents from considering smoking as an option for themselves [29]. In the case of young firesetters, further research is needed to examine the impact of access to ignition materials on the fire-related behavior of children and adolescents. This study is limited by its small sample size and exclusive focus on retail-obtained ignition materials. Nevertheless, this preliminary study demonstrates that young people use retail-obtained ignition materials in dangerous and costly fire incidents. Accordingly, community-level interventions, such as awareness campaigns or legislative changes that result in restricting the sale of matches and lighters to minors, should be considered as they have the potential to affect the fire-related behavior of children and youth. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, restricting the sale of ignition materials may facilitate a shift in social thinking about the potential dangerousness of ignition materials and the importance of taking precautionary measures to preclude their access by children. In this vein, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs in collaboration with TAPP-C and Health Canada are conducting a pilot study involving encouraging retailers, through providing education and resources, to voluntarily restrict the sale of ignition materials to minors. Experience at TAPP-C suggests that caregivers of juvenile firesetters are quite responsive to such techniques [16] but the ability to motivate change at broader community levels remains to be determined. Fire Marshal's Public Fire Safety Council Office of the Fire Marshal of Ontario City of Toronto Fire Services Competing interests: None declared. Funding: This study was supported by grants from the Office of the Fire Marshal of Ontario, the Fire Marshal's Public Fire Safety Council, and the Toronto Fire Services. They had no involvement in the preparation of this article. Ethics Approval: This study was approved by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Research Ethics Board, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (protocol reference 83/2000). Licence Statement: The Corresponding Author has the right to grant on behalf of all authors and does grant on behalf of all authors, an exclusive licence to Oxford University Press.