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Comment by emodendroket | Hacker News Reader

> Presumably - construction materials + fire fighting methods have improved dramatically in that time so buildings are much safer now.

I wouldn't be so sure. Fire prevention methods have improved, but instead of booking the safety gains, this has been seen as a reason to allow wooden structures that previously would not have been legal to build (the famous 5-over-1).

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FWIW fire deaths have gone down by half since the 70s. Perhaps you could attribute this to fire alarms or better automatic sprinklers but overall this is a very good trend given population trends.

I'm also fairly certain that better fire retardant materials are used now and that's why wooden structures are allowed.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trend-in-US-fire-deaths-...

I read a lot about these in local news because I used to live in a town in Massachusetts where one of those buildings burned down in construction. According to what I read, it's mostly the sprinklers that make it safe (or at least viewed that way) -- before those go in they're a big tinder box. This trend really took off with building code changes in 2009 though, so 1970 might not be the right starting point.

Battery powered smoke detectors as we now know them came out in the 70s.

I guess my larger point is if risk of death by fire gets cut in half because of variables other than extra staircases - then the benefit of adding extra staircases gets cut in half while the cost remains the same (or even increases).

Assuming that they are independent factors. In many instances, a life may be saved by the interaction of two variables. Signaling and egress often contribute in complementary functions.

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