Are you ready for some eye opening statistics when it comes to fire dangers in America?

I’m going to just dive in…

• Every 24 seconds, a United States fire department responds to a fire somewhere in the nation.
• A fire occurs in a structure at the rate of one every 63 seconds, and a home fire occurs every 87 seconds.
• In 2018, 3,655 civilians died in fires, an increase of 8 percent from the previous year.
• Nationwide, a civilian died in a fire every 2 hours and 24 minutes, and a civilian died in a home fire every 3 hours and 13 minutes.
• In 2018, fires caused 15,200 civilian fire injuries, a 4 percent increase over the previous year.
• Of these, 12,700 civilian injuries, or 84 percent of all civilian injuries, occurred in structure fires.
• Nationwide, there was a civilian fire injury every 35 minutes, and a civilian fire injury in home fires every 41 minutes.
• An estimated $25.6 billion in property damage occurred as a result of fire in 2018.
• $11.1 billion in property damage occurred in structure fires, including $8 billion in property loss in home fires.
• Almost three out of five home fire deaths in 2012-2016 were caused by fires in properties with no smoke alarms (40%) or smoke alarms that failed to operate (17%).
• The risk of dying in reported home structure fires is 54% lower in homes with working smoke alarms than in homes with no alarms or none that worked.
• When smoke alarms were present in reported fires considered large enough to activate them, they operated in 88% of the fires, 71% of the deaths and 81% of the injuries.
• Hardwired smoke alarms (with or without battery backup) were found in 48% of reported home fires in properties with smoke alarms; smoke alarms powered by batteries only were found in 46% of such fires.
• Almost two-thirds (65%) of the deaths from fires in homes with smoke alarms were caused by fires in properties with battery-powered alarms.
• In 1970, the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that on average, after a house fire breaks out, people have about 17 minutes to escape before being overcome by heat and smoke. Today, this estimate is closer to 3 minutes.