On March 8, a pair of married 81-year-old residents died in a fire at their Annandale home. The woman had discarded a cigarette, starting a fire; her husband went to the phone to call 911 to get help for his wife as the flames began to spread. Both perished in the blaze. Later, while sifting through the wreckage, fire investigators found the husband, still clutching the phone.
On April 2, an 89-year-old Springfield woman died while cooking in her kitchen. Her robe had caught fire as she reached over her stove.
National Fire Association statistics show that seniors and young children are the most likely to die in a house fire. Seniors die from fire-related causes twice as often as other members of the population; for those over 75, the rate is nearly three times the national average.
“The elderly certainly are the most at risk when it comes to a fire,” said David McKernan, deputy fire chief for prevention in Fairfax County. “It could be because of mobility issues or simply because of bad decision-making, like wanting to grab mementos or a family pet before escaping.”
The Washington region, like the rest of the nation, has an increasing percentage of senior residents as the baby-boom generation ages.
By 2010, Fairfax County expects that nearly 10 percent of residents, or more than 100,000, will be elderly, up from 85,000 in 2004. In Montgomery County, more than 20 percent of all households include a senior. Some 32 percent of all seniors in the county have a disability or physical limitation that could make it harder for them to protect themselves in a fire.
In response to these trends, Fairfax fire officials have begun an outreach designed to educate the senior population about how to deal with a fire in the home. Similar initiatives are under way in Montgomery, where County Executive Douglas Duncan created the Senior Citizen Fire Safety Task Force to deal with the increasing death rate among older residents.
