世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s one of these goo Ranking surveys that leaves me scratching my head rather a lot. This time it’s on fire prevention, a pertinent question as this month is fire prevention month – apparently this is the driest month of the year. As usual, no demographics, just a ranking for the relative votes in each category. Note that many people in Japan use either paraffin or gas heaters with naked flames.

If I were asked about this, the top answers I would give would be perhaps ensuring smoke detector batteries were fresh, or not smoking in bed if I were a smoker, but here in Japan, the second-top answer is not putting out rubbish the night before so as not to tempt arsonists. I can’t say I’ve ever given a thought to the subject,and in Japan is there really a significant amount of it or is it the result of the media focusing on the topic? There are posters everywhere about being aware of it, and the news often has reports of serial arsonists, but… I must check out the relevant statistics some time.

Q: What measures do you take in order to prevent fire?

Rank	Measure	Score
1	Turn off heater, etc, before going out or going to bed	100
2	Put rubbish out only on the morning of collection	91.4
3	Don’t put flammable material near stove, etc	72.0
4	When playing with fireworks, prepare a bucket of water and ensure adults are present	66.5
5	Turn off cooker when on telephone or callers come	62.2
6	Don’t put flammable material beside the house	61.3
7	When moving paraffin heaters, etc, be sure to turn off flame	60.1%
8	Don’t put heater near flammable materials or where things could fall on it	56.8
9	Don’t allow dust to build up near electrical sockets	55.1
10	Keep matches and lighters out of reach of children	48.0
11	Don’t expose spray cans to direct sunlight	45.8
12	Don’t put flammable materials near electric heaters	40.9
13	Turn gas off at stopcock after use	38.2
14	Ensure cigarette butts are completely extinguished	36.3
15	Only smoke where there are ashtrays	36.1
16	Don’t place heavy objects on power cables	35.8
17	Attach clasp fasteners to gas cooker’s supply pipe	35.2
18	Ensure cigarette butts are extinguished before throwing away	34.2
19	Never smoke in bed, chain smoke, or throw fag ends away	29.7
20	Don’t use power strips (forgotton English!)	25.9