In structural fire prone areas, other more pressing daily living requirements may reduce a sense of urgency about fire safety ([38]; see also [36]). In addition, even if mitigation measures are available in residential settings, they may not help. For example, in a study looking at residential fires in Surrey, British Columbia [40] while one third (36%) of residences that experienced fires did not have smoke alarms, the rest did. However, of those 1,554 residences that did have alarms, almost half (49.5%) were not activated during the fire. Further yet, various factors are known to militate against appropriate response to smoke alarm activation (e.g., young and old age; impairment and disability; being asleep) [40]. In addition, a smoke alarm may provide an illusory sense of control that then proves a deterrent to additional prevention and safety behaviour in the home (e.g., related to acquiring information about how to prevent and mitigate risk in relation to the known causes of residential fires including factors mostly related to human negligence including cooking-, open flame-, smoking-related factors and others [36,40]. These examples could continue to be elaborated (Examples will be returned to in subsequent sections to highlight ways that education programs for children might help them consider ways to solve some of the problems considered in this section).
However, the point here is to illustrate that preparedness and disaster preparedness education for children will benefit from a more holistic perspective. One that links physical with social systems more effectively and helps them begin to understand that problems related to risk reduction and increased preparedness are not based on a simple cause and effect approach but rather based on a range of physical and social factors that are interconnected. To anticipate later discussions, it is worth pointing out that children at younger ages have not developed the cognitive capacity to think in adult, or systemic, terms. For young children entering school, this will include a focus on appealing to their lifeworld and their level of development, focusing on simple knowledge and linking that to preparedness understanding and activities aimed at keeping them and important people safe. Over time, this foundation can be built on as children’s development takes on more cognitive complexity and moves from a more purely egocentric view to one that increasingly incorporates, and can accommodate, more systemic, civic, and abstract concepts and views of life [41].