Fire Prevention Statistics
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, the United States has been building fire prevention and awareness over the past decade to a point where the number of fires, deaths from fires, injuries from fires, and the dollars lost due to fires has been decreasing at rates up to 20% from 2006.
| Trends across America leading to a more fire preventative culture | ||||
| 2015 | 2006 | Trend | ||
| Number of Fires | 1,345,500 | 1,602,491 | 19.1% | ↓ |
| Deaths resulting from Fires | 3,280 | 3,378 | 3.0% | ↓ |
| Injuries resulting from Fires | 15,700 | 16,956 | 8.0% | ↓ |
| $ lost from fires (Billions) | $ 14.3 | $ 17.2 | 20.4% | ↓ |
To a casual reader, a total of almost 1.5 million fires in the United States, well breaking this list down to where fires actually occur can help determine how we as a community can contribute to a reduction in the number of fires.
From this list the largest single source of fires comes from outdoor fires, contributing a total of 41% of reported fires.
Causes of Residential Fires
Breaking this down into Residential Fires we see that the main cause of residential fires occurs from cooking!
| Causes of Residential Fires 2016 | |
| Cooking | 50.3% |
| Heating | 9.6% |
| Unintentional, careless | 6.6% |
| Electrical malfunction | 6.5% |
| Open Flame | 4.3% |
| Intentional | 4.2% |
| Appliances | 3.6% |
| Heat | 3.3% |
| Exposure | 2.9% |
| Smoking | 2.1% |
| Equipment Malfunction | 1.8% |
| Natural | 1.7% |
| Undetermined | 1.4% |
| Other equipment | 1.2% |
| Playing with heat source | 0.4% |
Causes of Nonresidential Fires
| Causes of Nonresidential Fires in 2016 | |
| Cooking | 29.9% |
| Unintentional, careless | 11.0% |
| Intentional | 9.3% |
| Electrical malfunction | 7.4% |
| Heating | 7.4% |
| Open Flame | 5.9% |
| Other heat | 5.1% |
| Equipment | 4.7% |
| Exposure | 4.4% |
| Appliances | 3.8% |
| Natural | 3.6% |
| Equipment malfunction | 3.4% |
| Smoking | 2.2% |
| Undetermined | 1.6% |
| Playing with heat source | 0.3% |
Causes of Outdoor Fires
| Causes of Outdoor Fires | |
| Unintentional | 43.1% |
| Undetermined | 25.9% |
| Intentional | 17.1% |
| Under Investigation | 4.8% |
| Act of nature | 4.7% |
Causes of Vehicle Fires
| Causes of Vehicle Fires | |
| Unintentional | 38.5% |
| Undetermined | 22.8% |
| Equipment Failure | 20.9% |
| Under Investigation | 10.0% |
| Intentional | 4.8% |
| Other | 2.9% |
