Illusions Can Be Fatal
We keep getting brochures announcing various escape devices that offer the purchaser the illusion of safety when fire occurs.
They vary from filter masks to plastic envelopes you pull over your head to encapsulate ambient air (good or bad) to devices that will lower you from the umpty-ninth floor of a hotel.
We won’t waste your time talking about the inadequacy of these devices. What we fear is that somewhere some legislators are going to believe in these illusions of safety and they are going to go soft on some real life safety measures — automatic sprinkler systems, fire-rated enclosed stairways, smoke and heat detectors, alarm systems, automatic-closing smoke barriers and the other things that do save lives.
