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“A Survey of the Disposition, Affinity, Interest and Experience with Fire of Students in the City of Greater Sudbury”

By:
Andre Cotterall
B.A. Criminal Justice/Criminology, M.A. Applied Social Research
andrecotterall@sympatico.ca or andrejames_cot@hotmail.com

A report was produced that describes the findings of a survey, initiated by the City of Greater Sudbury Fire Services to provide information on the issue of fire-play among elementary and high school students.  The City of Greater Sudbury is the largest centre in Northeastern Ontario. The survey itself was based on a sample of 3,031 students from grade 3 through 13, in both English and French, and these students completed a questionnaire administered during class in the fall of 2002.   The questionnaire was administered in 11 different regions of the City of Greater Sudbury.  All four school boards in the City of Greater Sudbury were represented in the survey.  The questionnaire was administered to 34 different schools. 

The focus of the report is on the extent of fire-play experience, fire-play behaviour, attraction to fire, and interest in fire activities of students in the City of Greater Sudbury.  It looks at how fire-play behaviour is related to a student’s level of attraction and natural liking of fire and fire activities.  The reasons students give for starting fires, their level of fire knowledge, and their permission to use fire materials and access to them.  It also describes some of the ways in which students with little or no fire-play behaviour are different from those who have considerable fire-play behaviour.

The topic of youth fire-setting is extremely broad and warrants careful examination and due attention. Research supports the contention that fire service agencies are coming in contact with only a fraction of the children who are at risk for injury to themselves and others given their fire behaviour.  Research of this kind is not focused on fire setters per se, but rather on increasing our understanding of how school-aged children and youth overall think and act regarding fire.

Below are some of the many noteworthy findings of this survey in brief:

• Extensive fire-play experience and fire-play behaviours were not common among students. Nevertheless, as many as 64% of students surveyed have played with matches or lighters at least once within the last year.

• As students move from Grade 5 to Grade 6 whether male or female they will begin to show a sharp increase in the level of fire-play experience and fire-play behaviours.

• Those students who report large frequencies of fire-play experience are also likely to report a proportional amount of fire-play behaviours (i.e. play games that involve matches, lighters or fire).

• A child’s or youth’s fire-play experience and fire-play behaviours are related to both an attraction to fire and an involvement and interest in fire activities (e.g. lighting barbecues, fireplaces and campfires).  Attraction to fire by itself does not lead to an increase in fire-play experience and fire-play behaviours.

• If a student reported having any degree of fire-play behaviour, he or she was also likely to have played with matches or lighters within the last year and to have reported a higher frequency of fire-play in the various locations considered in this survey. 

• Students with fire-play behaviours are more likely to have seen other children their age who have played with fire or set something on fire in the last year.  They were also more likely to have reported that they had picked on someone in the last month, had been in trouble at home or at school and had little or no parental supervision.

•  Evidence points away from the utility of classifying children or youth and their motives for starting fires into discrete categories (i.e. curiousity firesetter, revenge firesetter).  Reasons for starting a fire are not fixed and whatever reasons a student has reported for starting a fire, he or she is likely to report other reasons.  Examining the situational differences at the time of a fire-setting incident and their relation with the individual characteristics of the child or adolescent would best serve intervention purposes.

• Most students set fires just for the fun of it, to destroy something, out of boredom, or to see what will happen.  When it comes to motivations to start a fire, “just for fun” was the number-one reported reason.

• Far more of the students who report fire-play behaviours set fires out of anger, to get attention, or to hurt someone.

• Fire safety education was found to have a positive influence on a student’s ability to answer each of the fire knowledge and fire safety questions correctly.

• As with previous research, the present survey was unable to show any relationship between fire knowledge and the extent of a student’s fire-play behaviours.

• A higher percentage of those students who have been taught fire knowledge reported having working smoke alarms (taught 89% vs. not taught 79%), and an escape plan in case of a fire in their homes (taught 44% vs. not taught 23%).

• Those students with fire-safety education were less likely to play with matches or lighters they had found.  Not surprisingly, as many as 72% of those with fire-play behaviours would play with matches or a lighter they find. 

In summary, the report should be helpful for a number of reasons.  The report can provide the Fire Services with the necessary information to know where their prevention efforts would best be served and could also assist in determining the type of education that would be most effective in reducing the dangers of fire-play and fire-setting behaviours.  The findings lend credence to previous studies and provide a picture of the average school population to which data on persistent and referred fire-setters can be compared.  Further, the results reported go some distance to suggesting a strong link between the frequency of fire-play experience and more serious fire-play behaviours (e.g. fire-setting).

The survey was conducted in partnership with the City of Greater Sudbury Fire Services, Sudbury Fire Safety Foundation, and The Institute of Northern Ontario Research and Development.  I would like to thank Dr. Derek Wilkinson for his advice and assistance.

To obtain a copy of the 136 page report on CD, contact SOS FIRES at sosfires@sosfires.com. Cost for the CD and postage is $5.00 US funds payable to “SOS FIRES.”

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