- Author
- Hall, J. R., Jr.
- Title
- Home Cooking Fire Patterns and Trends.
- Coporate
- National Fire Protection Assoc., Quincy, MA
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM: NFPA One Stop Data Shop, 1 Batterymarch Park, P.O. Box 9101, Quincy, MA 02269-9101. Telephone: 617-984-7540, Fax: 617-984-7478, Email: osds@nfpa.org. Website: http://www.nfpa.org
- Keywords
- home fires | fire statistics | fire risk | methodology | residential buildings | death | stoves
- Identifiers
- profile of home cooking devices; how national estimates statistics are calculated; gas ranges or stoves; electric ranges or stoves; gas ovens or rotisseries; electric ovens or rotisseries; portable cooking or warming devices; deep fryers; gas grills; charcoal grills; fixed room warming appliances; grease hoods or ducts; microwave ovens
- Abstract
- In 1999, cooking equipment was involved in 96,200 reported home structure fires, the largest share for any major cause. Of these fires, 1,800 were reported as fires confined to a cooking vessel (meaning the interior of a cooking device or appliance), with no other details on the type of cooking equipment involved. (See Table 1.) The "confined fire" option is a new feature of NFIRS Version 5.0, which became effective in 1999. All analysis of detailed patterns of home cooking fires must be based on the 94,500 fires for which details were solicited, ifnot always provided. In addition to the 96,200 home structure fires involving cooking equipment, there were an estimated 5,200 reported outdoor home grill fires in 1999. In 1999, cooking equipment structure fires in homes resulted in 331 civilian deaths, 4,183 civilian injuries, and $511.3 million in direct property damage. Cooking also ranks first in number of civilian fire injuries. All measures of loss for home cooking fires are declining - for property damage, this is true only after adjustments for inflation - but the rate of decline has not been so great as for home fires in general. For example, home cooking fires declined by 29% from 1980 to 1999, but total home structure fires declined by 49% in the same period. The 21 % decline in home cooking fire deaths compare to a 44% decline in total civilian home fire deaths. The 7% decline in home cooking fire injuries compares to a 19% decline in total civilian home fire injuries. In addition to the structure fire losses, outdoor home grill fires caused an estimated one civilian fire death, 50 civilian fire injuries, and $0.5 million in direct property damage. Most home cooking fires (72% in 1999) involve the range, and more specifically the stovetop portion, and this is also true for losses in those fires.