Our interest is specifically in fire callouts which are insulation-related and occur in dwellings with
roof insulation. To make an accurate comparison with the HIP data, two numbers are required:
the number of fire service callouts each year that are insulated-related, in particular where that
relates to roof/ceiling insulation, and
the number of dwellings with roof/ceiling insulation.
The ratio of these two will give the rate of insulation-related fire service callouts in pre-HIP dwellings
with roof/ceiling insulation.
It has been estimated3 that there were about 80 – 85 cases of insulation-related house fires each year in
Australia prior to HIP. This figure has been quoted in a number of places but an original source has
not been identified.
An alternative approach is provided here which does not rely on the unsubstantiated 80-85 figure.
Recent data received from AFAC4 (10 February 2011) has been examined to classify the fire callouts
into categories. This is a difficult process as the text fields describing the fire incident often do not
carry sufficient information to classify with certainty. Table 5.5 shows the classification from March
2007 to December 2010, a total of 46 months, where the fire callouts provided have been classified as
follows:
Non-HIP2:
o Insulation-related o Insulation-related but recently installed (to qualify, the fire report needs to mention that
the insulation was newly installed, i.e. presumably in the previous few days) o Insulation-related but some recent human activity (e.g. plumber or electrician in roof) o Insulation related, but some recent non-human activity (e.g. electrical fault) o Cause not clear
HIP2:
o Insulation-related o Cause not clear
Not counted as insulation-related (e.g. multiple reporting, burglary, suspicious activity)
Fire incident due to other causes, not in roof cavity
