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have been reported, and fire officials have begun to seek guidance on how to minimize the fire risk associated with more widespread use of this product. The following analysis and recommendations were developed by the Catastrophic Fire Prevention Task Force at the request of Missouri State Fire Marshal Bill Farr and Maine State Fire Marshal John Dean.
Scope of Survey
The Task Force surveyed all State Fire Marshals. The Task Force also surveyed and then shared drafts of this document for comment by the National Center for Infectious Diseases of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO), the Association for Professionals in
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Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA).
Guidance
Though not related to alcohol hand sanitizers, the recent Hartford, CT, nursing home fire was a terrible reminder of the special precautions that must be taken with health care facilities. Similarly, the catastrophic fire that occurred a few days earlier at a Rhode Island nightclub underscored the importance of code enforcement officials' erring on the side of caution.
The codes provide guidance on some, but not all, of these issues. These products are relatively unstudied from a fire hazard point of view. Therefore, the Task Force recommends that
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