NFPA has published its annual report into national fire losses, showing a significant increase in the number of fires to which public fire services responded (up 3.7% from 2014, to over 1 340 000 fires/year).
A US fire department responds to a fire every 23 seconds. In total, some 3 280 civilians were killed by fires in the USA in 2015 and 15 700 were injured in fires. The number of building fires in the USA fell considerably from 1977 (peak high) to 1998, but since then has not fallen (1.5% increase in 2015). Residential structure fires also increased in 2015 (to 388 000) whereas the resulting number of deaths decreased 6.7%. Highway vehicle fires increased 3.9% to 174 000. Property loss caused by fires (to which fire services responded) was estimated at over 14 billion US$ in 2015, of which over 10 billion US$ in non wildland fires (up 4.4% from 2014).
NFPA Journal September 2016 and report “Fire Loss in the United States during 2015”, H. Haynes, NFPA, Sept. 2016