Disparity in Risk Factors for Urban Residential Fire Related Injuries and Deaths

The location characteristics of neighborhoods and balance in demand and supply capacity may play a role in determining the effectiveness of fire protection service delivery. Spatial accessibility to fire protection services integrates the location characteristics of neighborhoods and the dimensions of demand and supply capacity of fire protection services. Using the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method and logistic regression, this study measures spatial accessibility to fire protection services and examines its association with unintentional residential fire related injuries and deaths in Dallas, Texas. This analysis uses annual public fire incident data from 2012 to 2015, obtained from the U.S. Fire Administration, and census. In addition to fire characteristics and neighborhood demographics, spatial accessibility to fire protection services was significantly associated with unintentional residential fire related injuries with a small effect size. The analysis results suggest that there is disparity in the spatial accessibility score between low-income and non low-income census block groups, mainly in northeast and southwest service areas. The findings can be used to help identify high-risk neighborhoods for implementing fire injury prevention programs and select locations of additional fire stations.