An NFIRS Analysis: Investigating City Characteristics and Residential Fire Rates

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Executive Summary

The objective of this study was to identify relationships between city characteristics and residential fire rates. The study analyzed data from 27 cities reporting to the United States Fire Administration's National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). NFIRS is the largest fire data set in the country, and each year almost one million new records are added.

For each city, fire rates for eight different categories of fire cause were studied, as well as the overall level of fires. The causes included fires due to arson, children playing, careless smoking, cooking, heating, electrical distribution, appliances, and open flames. In seeking to explain city-to-city variation in fire rates, we examined climate, age structure of the population, and differences in the socioeconomic status of city residents. The findings of this study are presented in comparison with the findings of previous analyses.

Among the major findings of this study are:

Particular city characteristics were found to be strongly related to fire rates. The most common factors related to higher fire rates were climate and the age of the housing stock. Cities with worse climates and older housing stocks had a greater likelihood of fire.
Five of the eight causes of fire were found to be strongly related to at least one city characteristic. These included fires due to arson, children playing, careless smoking, heating, and electrical distribution. Much of the variation between cities in the rates of these fires could be explained by factors not controllable by the fire service.
Cooking fires were not found to be strongly related to city characteristics. This was unexpected because other studies have found strong links between poverty and the incidence of cooking fires. The use of cities as the unit of analysis may explain why no significant correlates of cooking fires were identified in this study.

The intent of research such as this is to help identify and clarify relationships between characteristics of people and places and fire risk. This information can be used for a variety of purposes, including the design, targeting, and evaluation of fire prevention programs. For example, cities with high proportions of children under age five need to recognize that their risk of children playing fires is higher than in other cities. They should compare their progress in reducing the rate of these fires against cities with similar proportions of children. Similarly comparisons could be made for other causes of fires.