To help that effort, the National Fire Protection Association contracted with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, in Baltimore to figure out the best way to communicate safety messages to kids 4 to 9 years old. The study, funded by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency Fire Prevention and Safety grant of more than $600,000, found that kids respond to positive messages with parental reinforcement and guidance.

During NFPA’s conference and expo in Boston earlier this month, the findings of the research was presented to a meeting room packed with fire service personnel, educators and a host of other interested parties.

“The take away is children respond better to positive messages with guided parental discussion,” said Dr. Rajiv Rimal of John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was a co-investigator for the study.

The study, which resulted in the creation of an 84-page document, said: “Overall, findings from this research suggest that the impact of safety messages on children will be greatest when framed positively, parents are encouraged to discuss these messages with children, and parents are provided with discussion guidelines.”

According to the report:

• An estimated 5,900 restaurant building fires occur annually in the United States, resulting in an estimated average of 75 injuries and $172 million in property loss.
• The leading cause of all restaurant building fires is cooking at 59 percent and nearly all of these cooking fires (91 percent) are small, confined fires with limited damage.
• While cooking is the leading cause of all restaurant building fires as well as the smaller, confined restaurant building fires, electrical malfunction is the leading cause of the larger, nonconfined restaurant building fires.
• Nonconfined restaurant building fires most often start in cooking areas and kitchens (41 percent).
• Deep fryers (9 percent), ranges (7 percent), and miscellaneous kitchen and cooking equipment (5 percent) are the leading types of equipment involved in ignition in nonconfined restaurant building fires.
• Smoke alarms were reported as present in 44 percent of nonconfined restaurant building fires. In addition, full or partial automatic extinguishment systems, mainly sprinklers, were present in 47 percent of nonconfined restaurant building fires.

Restaurant Building Fires is part of the Topical Fire Report Series. Topical reports explore facets of the U.S. fire problem as depicted through data collected in NFIRS. Each topical report briefly addresses the nature of the specific fire or fire-related topic, highlights important findings from the data, and may suggest other resources to consider for further information. Also included are recent examples of fire incidents that demonstrate some of the issues addressed in the report or that put the report topic in context.

“The one thing that really pulled me into the field was the human element, knowing that the work that we do impacts the life safety of people in a building,” said Teresa Chung, fire protection engineer at Rolf Jensen and Associates, Inc. in Walnut Creek, Ca. “I really wanted to have a positive impact on society and so fire protection engineering drew me in.” Using science and technology, fire protection engineers perform a wide range of roles that make the world safer from fire.