Tragedies Spotlight Children’s Vulnerability in House Fires : Safety: Along with the elderly, they suffer high death rates despite a decline in the overall number of fatalities. Simple precautions can avert disaster.

Ferocious fires in three Los Angeles County homes have killed four toddlers and critically burned two other young children since Saturday night, and the grim casualty list reflects a nationwide pattern: House blazes often claim the lives of the youngest, most helpless residents.

Nationwide, preschoolers accounted for nearly one-quarter of the nation’s house fire fatalities in 1993, according to National Safety Council records. About 750 infants and toddlers died, enough to fill 20 kindergarten classrooms, making residential blazes the second leading cause of accidental death for children under 5.

“It’s a very tragic issue,” said Deanne Tilton, who tracks child deaths in her role as director of Los Angeles County’s Interagency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect. “It’s a horrible way to die, and if you survive but are injured, it’s a horrible way to live.”

Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Mark Savage said local statistics on fire deaths by age were not available Tuesday. But, he added, preschoolers are especially vulnerable because “children will do the wrong thing quite often and not get out” of burning buildings.

Rather than flee, frightened toddlers may squirm under a bed or duck into a closet to hide from the flames. If they have started the blaze by playing with matches, they may keep quiet for fear of punishment as the fire races out of control. Or they may be terrified into mute withdrawal.

“They might grab a teddy bear and cover up with a blanket to hide, and that makes our rescue that much more difficult,” Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Andy Fox said. Infants, of course, can do little but wail until they are snatched to safety or rendered unconscious by smoke or poisonous gases. And when parents set out to grab their babies, they may find rescues extremely dangerous--or just plain impossible.

“People are influenced by what they see in the movies . . . we just take for granted that we’re going to be OK,” said Julie Reynolds, spokeswoman for the National Fire Protection Assn. “But in a real fire, you can’t see your own hand in front of your face, it’s excruciatingly hot, and you’re choking, gagging, vomiting and probably totally disoriented.”

Elderly people, like small children, suffer even more because many of them are not agile or strong enough to escape the fire quickly. About 1,100 senior citizens perished in house fires in 1993--an average of three a day.

The very young and very old have continued to suffer high fatality rates even though the overall number of deaths in house fires has slipped significantly in the past decade. Taken together, those under 5 and those 75 and older accounted for about 45% of all house fire fatalities in 1993--up from 34% a decade before, according to the National Safety Council.

Fire prevention experts summarize the statistics with two words: needless tragedy.

Many of the deaths, they believe, could be prevented with simple precautions such as functional smoke detectors, sound evacuation plans and vigilant adult supervision.

“It all goes back to common sense,” said Bob O’Brien, a spokesman for the National Safety Council. “If we could all just promote common sense, we would all be a lot better off.” In the real world, however, changing the smoke detector batteries usually lands on the same to-do list as stocking the earthquake first aid kit or testing the dusty old flashlight. It’s a to-do, certainly--but to do sometime later.

Although 90% of homes in the United States have at least one smoke detector, one-third of those early alarm systems are disabled, because of missing or run-down batteries, according to the National Fire Protection Assn. And, as O’Brien points out, without batteries a smoke detector is just “a piece of plastic hanging on the ceiling.”

To encourage residents to activate deadbeat smoke detectors, Los Angeles city firefighters give away batteries several times a year. And county firefighters have donated smoke detectors to senior citizens. Yet even these freebies do not change many habits.

“It’s complacency. It’s an it-will-never-happen-to-me attitude,” Fire Inspector Savage said. After the alarming series of fires over the past few days, he added, “I would hope people take note--these things do happen.”

A residential blaze breaks out somewhere in the United States every 67 seconds. In California alone, an average of 49 such fires erupted each day from 1990 to 1992, according to state statistics.

More than 10% of fires in California were traced to children playing with matches or lighters. Because children love to experiment with fire, experts warn parents to hide all matches out of reach, and to monitor their children carefully. “It boils down to eternal vigilance,” O’Brien said.

And it’s not only children who need policing. Many fires erupt because of adult carelessness--food sizzling on a stove, cigarettes smoldering on a couch. Faulty wiring and furnaces can cause fires, too, so they should be given annual safety checks.

The recent Southern California fires reflect the variety of causes behind house blazes:

* A 5-year-old boy playing with a cigarette lighter apparently sparked a blaze that killed his younger brother and his grandfather in South Los Angeles on Monday night. A Fire Department spokesman said investigators found one smoke detector in the house, but had not determined whether it was working at the time of the 9:30 p.m. blaze.

* Three toddlers perished along with their mother in a house fire in Southwest Los Angeles early Monday morning. Four older children clambered to safety when one of them released security bars from a bedroom window. Survivor Syreeta Middleton, 13, speculated that the fire may have been caused by an electrical short in the living room. The house had a smoke detector, she told firefighters, but she believes the batteries were dead.

* An arson fire in Hawthorne on Saturday night severely burned a newborn infant, a 2-year-old boy and their 20-year-old mother, Valerie Rivers. All three were hospitalized in critical condition.

* In Irvine, police said a 42-year-old male baby-sitter walked out on four sleeping children late Sunday night, apparently forgetting about the hot dogs cooking on the stove. The midnight snack caught fire, and as smoke surged through the apartment, a rookie police officer and an Orange County fire crew had to rescue two girls, ages 6 and 13, and twin 9-year-old boys from the inferno.

“It’s frustrating and it’s really sad when we have to go to all these fatal fires,” Savage said. “I certainly wonder when people are going to realize that a simple, well-placed smoke detector can save lives.”

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What to Do To protect yourself and your family from fire:

* SMOKE DETECTORS: Install detectors in every bedroom and hallway. Check the batteries every month and change them every year.

* ESCAPE PLANS: Identify two evacuation routes from every room. If you have small children, prepare a plan for rescuing them as you evacuate the house.

* MEETING SITE: Arrange a family meeting place outside the house to make sure everybody is safe.

* DRILLS: Conduct fire drills for the entire family.

* DOORS: Close bedroom doors at night to keep out smoke.

* DANGERS: Keep matches and cigarette lighters out of children’s hands.

* EQUIPMENT: Check chimneys, furnaces, electrical wiring and space heaters yearly to be sure they are safe and clean.

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Fire Fatalities Pre-school age children and the elderly suffer disproportionately in house fires. Although the number of fatalities has dropped nationwide since 1989, young children and people older than 75 continue to account for 35% to 45% of all deaths from house blazes.

Other causes About 3,400 accidental deaths nationwide of children under 5 were recorded in 1993. The leading causes of death were: Motor vehicles: 1,000 Home fires: 750 Drowning: 450 Suffocation or strangulation: 350 Choking on food: 120 Falls: 60 Sources: National Safety Council Note: Comparable L.A. County statistics were not available.