- Author
-
Ahrens, M.
- Title
- Home Fires That Began With Upholstered Furniture.
- Coporate
- National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA
- Report
-
NFPA USS56,
May 2008,
66 p.
- Keywords
-
upholstered furniture
|
home fires
|
fire statistics
|
ignition
|
smoke detectors
|
fire spread
|
smoking
|
candles
|
matches
|
lighters
|
heating equipment
|
methodology
|
lighting equipment
- Identifiers
- smoking materials vs. candles, matches or lighters; how national estimates are calculated; electrical distribution; small open flames
- Abstract
- Based on data from the U.S. Fire Administration's (USFA's) National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) and the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA's) annual fire department experience survey, NFPA estimates that during 2002-2005, upholstered furniture was the item first ignited in an average of 7,630 reported home structure fires per year. (Homes include one- and two-family dwellings, apartments or other multiple family dwellings, and manufactured housing.) These fires caused an estimated annual average of 600 civilian deaths, 920 civilian injuries and $309 million in direct property damage. Upholstered furniture is the leading item first ignited in home fire deaths. Although upholstered furniture fires started by smoking materials have fallen sharply since 1980, smoking materials remain the leading cause of these fires and associated losses.