I knew someone who wired up a switch next to his cooker so he could disable the house smoke alarms temporarily whilst cooking - I never did work out if that was utter genius or complete stupidity :-)
Just a thought - maybe it's not the number of fires but the effect in largely wooden houses that is the problem?
Single storey construction of light materials (timber frame/timber clad) so fire spread is much quicker than here. 110V cabling often in Aluminium which easily develops high resistance joints. Double the current for the same power (compared with 220V) makes cable overheating and overheating of connections much more common. Radial wiring contributes to overloading as some circuits carry much more current than others. A lot of US fires start in the building structure behind sockets etc.
Without building a completely new style of dwelling, then I don't see how this last in particular would be possible.
All of this stuff has to fit into what's also necessary for a comfortable, healthy convenient life.
Bedroom doors that need to be closed at night don't fit into that, for most people anyway. Fire escapes all over the outsides of our houses don't either.
It's also not clear that it's the best way to spend the money. If the total cost of a certain cost of action - say, fitting out new houses with sprinklers - is greater than the cost of another course with equal benefits - say, public awareness of fire prevention - then the latter seems more sensible.
Daniele
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