The Management of Mass Burn Casualties and Fire Disasters

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Overview The First International Conference on Burns and Fire Disasters

   1. Overview The First International Conference on Burns and Fire Disasters

      • C. Rollins Hanlon

      Pages 1-3

3. Disaster

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 5-5

      PDF

   2. Thermal agent disaster and fire disaster: definition, damage, assessment and relief operations

      • Michele Masellis

      Pages 7-12

   3. The scientific basis of disaster medicine

      • S. W. A. Gunn

      Pages 13-18

   4. Overcoming the mythology of disaster

      • Eric E. Alley

      Pages 19-23

   5. Analysis of severe fire disasters

      • C. Arturson

      Pages 24-33

4. Fire Disasters

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 35-35

      PDF

   2. Fire disasters in Osaka

      • Takashi Ukai, Muneo Ohta, Choei Wakasugi, Shigeru Hishida

      Pages 37-44

   3. Lessons from the Dublin 1981 fire catastrophe

      • S. T. McCollum

      Pages 45-50

   4. Forest fires and the danger to fire-fighters

      • Giovanni Bovio

      Pages 51-59

   5. Forest fires in Sicily

      • C. Corrao

      Pages 60-63

   6. Safety regulations in high-risk industries. The situation in petrochemical plants in Sicily

      • E. Cannata, F. Di Benedetto

      Pages 64-69

   7. Domestic fire problems in Third World countries

      • Saeed A. Ansari

      Pages 70-76

   8. Domestic burns in children caused by butane gas explosion

      • R. Bouayad Agha

      Pages 77-78

   9. Accidents due to electricity and burns. A statistical analysis of events occurring at the National Electricity Energy Board during the period 1988–1989

      • R. Comini, L. Pontorieri, G. Fanello

      Pages 79-88

   10. Fire in port

       • M. Brusco

       Pages 89-92

   11. Fire on board ship

       • G. Garri

       Pages 93-105

   12. Marine fire casualties in merchant ships: the Greek statistics

       • J. Joannovich, P. Panayotou, D. Tsoutsos, E. Filopoulos, A. Yannopoulos, D. Alexakis et al.

       Pages 106-109

   13. Fire services at a motor racing track

       • B. Trovato

       Pages 110-112

Thermal harm is one of the most traumatizing assaults on man and his environment. Whether suffered by living beings as burn injury, or sustained by societal structures as fire damage, the resulting physical pain and material loss can be extremely distressing both to the person and to society. The health professions and in particular burn specialists have been continually developing effective means of combating burn disease and promoting rehabili­ tation of the victims, especially in mass casualty situations. In parallel, various levels of the community have been mobilizing fire prevention and fire-fighting mechanisms that protect society and the environment from the ever-increasing hazards of fire disasters. It is therefore surprising that, while aiming at the same objective, the two sectors have rarely come together; doctor has rarely worked with fire chief. Yet both disciplines have so much to learn from and contribute to each other's efforts. The Mediterranean Burns Club is a professional organization that brings together persons concerned with burn therapy and fire safety in all forms, especially in the countries of the Mediterranean basin. It is honoured to have been identified by the United Nations as a premier scientific body in its field within the programme of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. It is therefore natural that it should have initiated an international gathering of specialists engaged in burns as a surgical, clinical problem, and of counterparts dealing with fires as a societal, disaster management problem.

• assessment
• burns
• communication
• emergency
• health
• hospital
• management
• organizations
• prevention
• resuscitation
• safety
• therapy

• Division of Plastic Surgery and Burn Centre Palermo, Italy

  M. Masellis

• Mediterranean Burns Club, Italy

  M. Masellis, S.W.A. Gunn

• Emergency Relief Operations, World Health Organization, Switzerland

  S.W.A. Gunn

Policies and ethics