- Author
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- Title
- Reducing America's Fire Losses With Residential Fire Sprinkler Systems. Partners for Fire Safe Homes.
- Coporate
- Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, DC
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM: U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), 16825 South Seton Ave., Emmitsburg, MD 21727. Telephone: 301-447-1000. Website: http://www.usfa.fema.gov
- Keywords
- fire losses | residential buildings | sprinkler systems | smoke detectors | costs
- Abstract
- The United States has a serious and substantial fire problem. Roughly once every one and one-half seconds an unreported fire occurs. Nearly once every, minute, somewhere in America, there is a home fire serious enough to warrant calling the fire department. All told, fire in the United States kills more people - more than 4,500 in 1993 - than all natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and blizzards, combined. The rate of death from fire in the U.S. is significantly higher than in other industrialized nations. The economic implications of fire loss are staggering - such as the cost of built-in fire protection, the cost of providing fire insurance, the cost of fire fighting services, the disruption of business operations after fire, medical costs for those injured, etc. When these costs, and the human and property losses directly due to fire are combined, the true cost of fire pushes up past $100 billion a year. Additionally, there are very substantial psychological impacts of fire on those who survive: grief, guilt, trauma from injury.