Fires kill blacks at higher rate than for whites

Poverty, housing conditions and other socioeconomic factors are blamed.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Dion Echols and his sister, Deanna Pinson, were playing by themselves with matches or a lighter when a midday fire broke out of control in Dayton three years ago, killing both.
Two factors contributing to their deaths are common in fire fatalities. The house in an older neighborhood lacked working smoke alarms, and both victims were very young -- Deanna 5 years old, Dion, 3.
Both victims were also black, yet another risk factor given statistics showing that blacks die in fires of all causes at more than twice the rate of whites, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The fire was coming down the stairs and then the smoke and everything was so intense," said Linda Branham, a neighbor who tried with her husband to rescue Dion and Deanna.
From 1999 through 2003, 4,883 blacks died from fire, according to the data, or a rate of 2.63 deaths per 100,000.
By contrast, the rate for the 13,755 whites who died during the same time was 1.18 per 100,000.
Causes
Fire experts blame the higher risk for blacks on poverty, housing conditions and other socioeconomic factors.
"Fire may just be a barometer of other insults that African-Americans are exposed to at a greater level than other individuals are in society," said Russell Jones, a Virginia Tech psychologist who studies the impact of fire on survivors.
In Cleveland, arson fires killed four young children in April and nine people, including eight children, 11 months earlier, on May 21, 2005. No one has been charged in either crime. All of the victims were black.
Many blacks live in big cities, and arson rates are higher in such cities, according to the Massachusetts-based National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit organization of firefighters, builders and other trades people that researches fires and their causes and creates fire safety codes.
A year ago in Trenton, N.J., for example, a 24-year-old man and his two daughters, ages 7 and 6, died in a fire that authorities said was set in retaliation by gang members. All three were black.
In 2002, an arson fire killed a Baltimore couple and their five children after they complained to police about drug dealing in their neighborhood. All were black.
Cleveland has a black population of about 54 percent, while Trenton's is 52 percent, according to Census data. Blacks in Baltimore make up about 65 percent of the total.
Suspicious blaze
Floria Harper lost her daughter, Pamela, and 8-year-old granddaughter, Ti'ana, in a 2003 Columbus house fire that police and fire officials ruled suspicious.
"The thing that bothers me the most about it is the fact that there's someone out there that's walking around with murder in their heart," said Harper, 63, of Milwaukee.
U.S. Fire Administration data has found direct links between poverty and fire risk. Blacks had the lowest median income of any racial group in 2004, or $30,134, and the highest poverty rate at 24.7 percent, according to Census data.
"We're not talking about a risk to racial populations so much as a risk to a disadvantaged population," said John Hall, a senior analyst at the fire protection association.
Poor people in general tend to have fewer smoke alarms, and fewer smoke alarms that work, said Dr. Mick Ballesteros, a CDC scientist who studies causes of unintentional fires.
They also live in older buildings that are harder to get out of in emergencies, such as high-rise apartments.
"Fire fatality rates go where the poverty is," Ballesteros said.
The fire death rate also is higher for American Indians, although at 1.59 per 100,000 it trails the rate for blacks. The rate is lowest -- 0.42 -- for Asians and Pacific Islanders, according to CDC data.
Young victims
Among children, those under 5 are at the highest risk for fire death, and among those, black and American Indian children are at even greater risk, according to the U.S. Fire Administration.
An association representing black firefighters has made the prevention and reduction of black fire deaths a priority. Too often the issue is not seen as a mainstream American problem, said Johnny Brewington, president of the International Association of Black Professional Fire Fighters and a Cleveland fire official.
The problem won't end until "this situation is viewed as a national problem," Brewington said. "Not just an African-American problem, or not just a low-income problem."
In the Dayton fire, on April 11, 2003, the children's grandmother had fallen asleep downstairs, and the children were playing in an upstairs bedroom. Dion was found in that room, while Deanna was found hiding in a cardboard box in the room next door.
A smoke detector in the living room didn't have a battery. The family had lived in the house about six weeks.
Branham said that after flames prevented her husband, Jonathan, from going upstairs, he ran outside, grabbed a ladder and broke open a second-story window. But the heat was too intense to get inside.
Branham, 42, who is black, has two young daughters still at home and a baby granddaughter she watches most days. She has two smoke alarms and is about to install a third.
"Material things you can always get," she said. "The lives of my family and kids, that's most important to me."