Are smoke detectors as effective as the public health literature reports?

Our multivariate model finds smoke detector impact on the fire death rate has an elasticity of − 0.10, similar to Garbacz [Garbacz, C., 1989. Smoke Detector Effectiveness And The Value Of Saving A Life, Economics Letters, 31, 281–286.] using pre-saturation detector data. Public health estimates are − 0.45. Additionally, we find that cigarette smoking has ten times the impact of detectors.