According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) estimates for 2006, there were 111,500 nonresidential structure fires. These fires resulted in 85 deaths, 1,425 injuries, and $2.6 billion in direct dollar loss. Although nonresidential structure fires represent only 7 percent of all reported fires and account for just 3 percent of fire deaths and 9 percent of fire injuries, they account for 23 percent of the dollar losses from fire nationwide.
Residential fires account for the majority of injuries and deaths and outdoor fires account for the major ity of fires. Nonresidential fires, by contrast, tend to be the most costly fires per incident.
Analyses of the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) data on the nonresidential structure fire problem were formerly published as a chapter in each edition of Fire in the United States. In this report, as in previous editions of Fire in the United States, an attempt has been made to keep the data presentation and analysis as straightforward as possible. It is also the desire of the United States Fire Administration to make the report widely accessible to many different users, so it avoids unnecessarily complex methodology.
This report analyzes nonresidential building fires over the 3-year period from 2004 to 2006, with a focus on 2006 data. It is organized differently from its predecessor chapters on nonresidential buildings in the many editions of Fire in the United States. As before, there is a section on each major subgroup of nonresidential buildings, such as assembly, stores and offices, storage, etc.
Each section discusses the causes of fires, time of fire alarm, month, the presence and effectiveness of smoke alarms, and the presence of automatic extinguishment systems (AESs). Where appropriate, findings are given separately for fires and fires with dollar loss, and for confined fires. An Appendix provides the raw NFIRS numbers for the smoke alarm and AES analyses.
Nonresidential Building Fires (PDF, 12 Mb)
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