Best Practices

Smoking – Smoking caused 680 civilian deaths, 1520 injuries, and $737 million in direct property damage.  Most deaths result from fires that began in living rooms, family rooms, dens, or in bedrooms.  Thirty-nine percent of fatal home smoking-material fire victims were age 65 or older.

Candles – In a 5 year period fire departments responded to an estimated average of 12,860 home structure fires started by candles per year.   More than one-third (36%) of home candle fires started in bedrooms.  On average, 35 home candle fires were reported per day.  Falling asleep was a factor in the fire and associated [...]

Dryers and washing machines were involved in 4% of home structure fires last year.  Clothes dryers accounted for 92% of the fires.  The leading cause of dryer fires is failure to clean, followed by mechanical failure or malfunction.  Some were caused by electrical failure or short circuit.  Be sure to clean your dryers!

Electrical fires and failures or malfunctions result in an average of 53,600 home fires each year.  These fires cause more than 500 deaths, injure 1,400 people and account for $1.4 billion in property damage.  The appliances most often involved are stoves and ovens, dryers, central heating units, televisions, radios and CD players.

Cooking fires are #1 and home heating equipment is the #2 cause of home fires.  Space heaters, whether portable or stationary, account for 32% of these fires and 80% of home heating fire deaths.  The leading factor contributing to home heating fires was failure to clean creosote from solid-fueled heating equipment, primarily chimneys.  Be careful [...]