Every 24 seconds, a fire department responds to a fire somewhere in the U.S. A
fire occurs in a structure at the rate of one every 65 seconds, and a
residential fire occurs every 82 seconds. Fires occur in vehicles at the rate
of 1 every 146 seconds, and there’s a fire in an outside property every 50
seconds. Nationwide, there was a civilian fire death every 169 minutes last
year and a civilian fire injury every 30 minutes.
That’s the overview from NFPA’s 2010 Fire Loss in
the U.S. report. In 2010, NFPA
reports that public fire departments responded to 1,331,500 fires in the U.S., a
slight 1.3% decrease from the previous year and the lowest since NFPA started
using its current survey methodology in 1977-78. The organization also reports
that the 1,331,500 fires reported in 2010 resulted in an estimated 3,120
civilian deaths, a 3.7% increase from
the year before. Of those deaths, 2,640 (85%) occur in home fires, NFPA
reports, which indicates that fire safety initiatives targeted at the home
remain the key to any reductions in the overall fire death toll. Learn more
about the five major strategies NFPA highlights in the full report
here.