US figures show ongoing risk of residential fires but big reductions in property loss

摘要

Fire departments in the USA respond to an incident every 24 seconds, with a building fire occurring every 65 seconds. So reports the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in its new report, Fire loss in the United States during 2010, which outlines the latest estimates and analyses trends from 1977. According to the figures, American fire services responded to 1,331,500 fires last year - slightly less than the year before. From this total, 482,000 were structure fires, most of which - some 80% - were residential incidents, particularly in one-and two-family homes. Figures here are similar to the previous year. In other building fires, some notable changes are reported. For example, there were 12,000 fires in public assembly occupancies - 17% less than the year before - while incidents in stores and offices increased by about 10% to 18,000.