2000 Report from FEMA

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1

Originally Posted By: dfrend
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Some interesting information to keep in mind from Department of Homeland Security:


- In 2000, 379,500 residential structure fires resulted in 3,445 fatalities, 17,400 injuries, and $5.7 billion in property loss. The majority of fires (and losses) occurred in one- and two-family dwellings.


- Residential fire account for 75% of ALL structure fires

- The majority of the fires started in the kitchen

-The three leading causes of residential fires were cooking, heating, and incendiary/suspicious (arson) fires. The second of which inspectors can help control directly through inspections, the first through increasing awareness. Electrical distribution follows at number 4.

- Electrical ARCING is the SECOND leading heat source for fires!!!!! AFCI's???????

- No smoke alarms in HALF of the homes involved and of the other half that had them, only 32% of them were operable!!!!!!!!!

- Not to be forgotten ------
3,445 (three thousand four hundred forty five) DEATHS.

With almost 400,000 homes involved, do you think some of them were recently inspected? I would put money on it.

--
Daniel R Frend
www.nachifoundation.org
The Home Inspector Store
www.homeinspectorstore.com

2

Originally Posted By: Blaine Wiley
This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.


1 death per 1000 fires. Actually, isn’t that a great improvement over 10 years previous? Must be better fire department response, right Dan


As those statistics are four years old, is there any info from last year? ![icon_biggrin.gif](upload://iKNGSw3qcRIEmXySa8gItY6Gczg.gif)

3

Originally Posted By: dfrend
This post was automatically imported from our archived forum.


Actually, those are the most current numbers. With millions of reports a year to comb through, it takes a while to get accurate numbers.


As far as the 1 death per thousand. That is true, but misleading. Think all those 17,400 injured are better off with some of their injuries? Also, that is a national total. The figure varies drasticly by state. Ten states make up nearly half of the numbers. HOWEVER, in the most populated of those, the number of deaths per capita is far less than in smaller, less populated states. For example, New York might have 500 deaths while vermont has 50 but with the population differences, vermont has a bigger problem.

Another thing to consider, even if an area with bigger per capita problems might decrease their numbers dramaticly, unless the big state with drops a large percentage, the national average is barely changed.

Many of us are in those top ten states.

--
Daniel R Frend
www.nachifoundation.org
The Home Inspector Store
www.homeinspectorstore.com