Overview of 1999 U. S. Fire Experience

Number of Fires

• 1,823,000 fires were attended by public fire departments, and increase of 3.8% from the year before.
• 523,000 fires occured in structures, a slight increase of 1.1%
• 383,000 fires or 74% of all structure fires occured in residential properties.
• 368,500 fires occured in vehicles, a decrease of 3.3% from the year before.
• 931,500 fires occured in outside properties, an increase of 8.7%.
• The South with 7.8 had the highest fire incident rate per thousand population.
• What do these fire frequencies above mean? Every 17 seconds, a fire department responds to a fire somewhere in the nation. A fire occurs in a structure at the rate of one every 60 seconds, and in particular a residential fire occurs every 82 seconds. Fires occur in vehicles at the rate of 1 every 85 seconds, and there’s a fire in an outside properity every 34 seconds.

Civilian Fire Deaths

• 3570 civilian fire deaths occurred in 1999, a moderate decrease of 11.5%
• 2895 fire deaths occurred in the home in 1999, a moderate decrease of 10.0%
• About 81% of all fire deaths occurred in the home.
• The Sount with 15.1 civilian deaths per million population had the highest regional rate followed by the Northcentral (14.2)
• Nationwide, there was a fire death every 147 minutes.

Civilian Fire Injuries

• 21,875 civilians were injured in 1999, a decrease of 5.3% from the year before.  This estimate for civilian injuries is on the low side, due to under reporting of  civilian injuries to the fire service.
• 16,425 or 75.3% of all civilian injuries occurred in residential properties, while 2,100 or 9.6% occurred in nondesidential structure fires.
• The Northeast (103.7) had the highest regional rate per million population.
• Nationwide, there was a civilian fire injury every 24 minutes.

Property Damage

• An estimated $10,024,000,000 in property damage occurred as a result of fire in 1999, a significant increase of 16.2%.
• $8,490,000,000 or 85% of all property damage occurred in structure fires.
• $5,092,000,000 or 51% of all structure property loss occurred in residential properties.
• The Northcentral with $45.4 had the highest property loss rate (reflects generating plant fires totaling $515 million loss) followed by the Souht ($38.5) and the Northeast ($38.3).

Incendiary and Suspicious Fires

• An estimated 72,000 structure fires were deliberately set or suspected of having been deliberately set, a decrease of 5.3% from a year ago, and 13.7% of all structure fires.
• Incendiary or suspicious fires in structures resulted in 370 civilian deaths, a decrease of 21.2% from 1998.
  Incendiary or suspicious structure fires also resulted in $1,281,000,000 in property damage. This represents 15.1% of all structure propery loss.
• 45,000 vehicle fires of incendiary or suspicious origin occurred, no change from a year ago, and caused $195,000,000 in property damage, a decrease of 9.3% from a year ago.

Fire loss in the U. S.                           NFPA Fire Analysis and Research, Quincy, MA