USFA Reports on Fire In the United States
From the Publishers Desk
We have been dipping into the report, “Fire in the United States,” which has just been published by the United States Fire Administration— quite a hefty report of 252 pages. One of its more interesting pieces of information is a chart titled “Where the United States Stands Among Other Nations—Building Fires, 1972-1974.”
It seems that we do not stand so well among the European nations, Japan, Canada and Australia. Under the column “Dollar Loss Per Capita,” we rank third among 15 countries, exceeded only by Australia and Norway, with two countries not reporting. Under dollar loss as a percent of ONP, we are tied for fourth place with the United Kingdom. “Total Fire Deaths Per 100,000 Persons,” unhappily, Finds us number 2 and just a fraction behind Canada. With the exception of Norway, we lead the world in “Reported Fires Per 1000 Population.”
We begin to look a little better in “Dollar Loss Per Fire”—eighth and much better in “Total Fire Deaths Per 1000 Building Fires” at 5.4. Japan, for instance, had 47 and France 21.7. Perhaps we shine in this last category because of the efficiency of our fire Fighting forces.
Statistics somehow intrigue us, and we found it most interesting that “falls,” not “fires” rank first in “accidental death in the home (residence).” Even more interesting was the fact that most residential fires seem to occur in the afternoon and early evening. But, “fire deaths peak in the late evening and early morning hours, the time when most people are asleep.” Residential deaths from fire, incidentally, account for 75 percent of all fire deat hs in Ohio and 64 percent in California.
What is really astounding in this report is that there were approximately 2,600,000 fires in 1975 that were reported to the fire service and about 40,000,000 (yes, millions) more that were not reported. The estimated total dollar loss (excluding indirect losses such as lost wages, medical treat ment, etc.) exceeded $13.6 billion.
