In 1998 the U.S. had one of the highest fire death rates in the industrialized world, with a death rate of 14.9 deaths per million of population.
The average annual death rate in the U.S. is 5,000 and another 25,100 people are injured annually as the result of fires.
About 100 firefighters are killed every year in duty related accidents.(2001 will be unfortunately high with the attack on the World Trade Center.)
Fire kills more people than all natural disasters combined every year.
80% of fire deaths occur at home.
Fire is the 3rd leading cause of accidental death at home.
Approximately 2 million fires a reported each year with many fires going unreported, causing additional injury and property loss.
Direct property loss is estimated a 8.6 billion annually due to fire.
There were 1,775,000 fire in the U.S. during 1998.
41% were outside fires.
29% were structure fires.
22% were vehicle fires.
8% were fires of other types.
Residential fires account for 22% of all fires and 74% of all structure fires.
Point of origin in 1-2 family dwellings for fires
Kitchen 23.5%
Bedroom 12.7%
Living room 7.9%
Chimney 7.1%
Laundry area 4.7%
Points of origin in apartment fires
Kitchen 46.1%
Bedroom 12.3%
Living room 6.2%
Laundry area 3.3%
Bathroom 2.4%
The southern U.S. has the highest death rate at 18.4 per million population.
85% of the fatalities that occur at home happen in single family homes and duplexes.
Cooking is the #1 cause of fires in the home, it is also the leading cause of fire related injury. Human error is the greatest factor of cooking related fires.
Smoking is the #1 cause of fire related deaths in the U.S.
Heating is the # 2 cause of residential fires and fire related deaths. Heating related deaths are a larger problem in 1 and 2 family homes than in apartments due to the regular servicing that apartment heating systems receive.
Arson is #3 cause of residential fires and fire related deaths in the U.S. Arson is the major cause of deaths in commercial properties.
People under the age of 5 and people over the age of 70 are twice as likely to die in a fire.
In 1996 children under the age of 10 accounted for 17% of all fire deaths.
Most residential fires occur between 10pm and 6am.
51.6% of residential fire victims die in their sleep as a result of smoke inhalation.
A working smoke detector can reduce your risk by 50%.
Approximately 88% of U.S. home have smoke detectors. However not all of these detector are working, some are disconnected from electrical power, or have the battery removed, or the detector has not been properly maintained.
It is estimated that over 40% of residential fires occur in homes without smoke detectors.
It is also estimated that 60% of residential deaths occur in homes that don't have smoke detectors.
39% of all people with smoke alarms had them go off without a fire present in the home during the last year. 73% of these alarms were due to cooking and 16% were due to low battery chirp.
77 million or 33% of the smoke detectors are out of date meaning that they are over 10 years old with over 87,000 hours of use on them.
20% of the detectors in residential dwellings are non functioning due to lack of cleaning dead batteries or disconnected batteries / power.
If 88% of homes have smoke detectors and 20% are considered to be non-working that would mean that there are only 70.4% detectors are functioning. And if 33% of the detectors are considered to be out of date that would mean approximately 46% are working and up to date.
Scary thought isn't it! Check your smoke detector, change the batteries, make sure that it is not over 10 years old and make sure that it is clean. And if you have an out of date detector or you don't know how old it is then replace it!
The average cost of a smoke detector is $10 which is $1 dollar a year and a battery for $2.50 every 6 months. That would cost you $6 a year per detector. Considering that you pay a lot more for homeowner's insurance, renter's insurance, or auto insurance that won't even save your life, a smoke detector is cheap life saving insurance.
Check out our Smoke detector page on the Fire Safety and Baby-sitting page