“Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts…”
The famous warning that Virgil penned in his tale of the Trojan horse has proven true again and again down through the centuries and is just as applicable today. That was the first thing that I thought of when one of our readers sent me the link to a .pdf document posted by the American Forest and Paper Association. I should add that in this modern era, we should extend the definition of “gifts” to include statistics. Because once you hand over a batch of numbers, surveys and reports to a public relations firm, then there’s no telling how many different conclusions you can pull out from them.
This particular PR document is titled: Wood I-Joists and Firefighter Safety. You can find it HERE and bring it up in a separate window to read along with me, if you wish. It’s a very colorful 20-page (very short pages) file with lots of pictures and pie charts. I’m really not certain just who the target audience is for this file, but if it’s supposed to be primarily for firefighters, then it’s insulting. I’m guessing that it’s just something put together that they can wave around before legislative and building groups showing that they “really care” about firefighters and are doing all this to help us out while dispelling these dangerous myths about how their wood-chips-and-glue building products are unsafe.
On page 2 they tell us that this document “provides information on the relationship between wood I-joists and firefighter casualties.” You see, right away they are tossing aside things like FF injuries, close calls and the incovenient facts about total building destruction. Then we get about four pages of nice photos of these fabricated joists showing how and where they are used.
Next up comes a promise to look at How Fire Safe Are Homes With Wood I-Joists? with some emphasis on firefighter safety. This is followed by some nice pie charts and graphs showing how many FF’s and home occupants have died in house fires in the past 10 years and what the causes of house fires have been during that time. Then they go into the numbers of firefighter fatalities during that time from floor collapses.
This is where you have to be careful. They are extrapolating all firefighter deaths from floor collapse based on statistics accumulated when there were hardly any house fires involving wood chip floor joists. Two things you have to watch out for are: a) so far, the percentage of existing homes built this way is very low. So by combining the stats from traditional-built houses they are diluting the inherent dangers of the construction method; and b) generally speaking, newer homes as a group have lower fire incident rates. It isn’t until a new subdivision has about 10 years of age on it before fire activity picks up in it.
Keep that in mind as you go through the next few pages of statistical charts. One of those is interesting for a couple of reasons. They have a map of the states showing the percentage of homes in each that have basements. Just for pure enlightenment, I found that interesting. But for the PR value, they are now narrowing the focus of their report down even further by suggesting that only homes with basements are the real danger, ostensibly because basements have exposed floor joists. Maybe we should show them some of these wood-chip houses where the top floor is sitting on the concrete pad by the time the 1st-due engine arrives.
Are you getting the idea now on how to look at statistical reports from special-interest groups? Go ahead and finish looking through the rest of this slick report and share with us in the Comments some of the other carefully guided conclusions that they are hoping to leave you with.
That’s after we check this equipment out, of course. I’ve got to go get the coffee started. We’ll meet in the day room and talk over what you found in the “report.”
Thanks to FireTech1 for bringing this to the lineup today.
