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Last year, 21 of these incidents resulted in 150 fatalities, topped by a series of historic California wildfires that killed 44
Every year, NFPA reports on the most severe lossof-life Fires and explosions in the United States, referred to here as catastrophic multiple-death Fires. These events are defined as fires or explosions that cause Five or more deaths in a home or Ии ее or more deaths in a non-home structure, or in fires outside of structures, such as wildFires or vehicle fires. Vehicle crashes with a post-crash fire are included in this study if a fire in the vehicle caused the crash or the local coroner or medical examiner confirmed to NFPA that the victims died of thermal injuries or inhalation of products of combustion, rather than impact injuries.
In 2017, 21 fires or explosions were considered catastrophic multiple-death fires. These fires killed 150 people, including 21 children under six years of age. Of those 21 fires, 14 occurred in homes and accounted for 84 of the deaths, including all of the children under the age of six. Three fires and two explosions occurred in non-home structures and accounted for 19 of the deaths. Additionally, two wildland fires accounted for 47 deaths.
In 2017, firefighters in the United States responded to an estimated 1,319,500 fires. An estimated 499,000 of those occurred in structures, and an estimated 820,500 occurred outside of structures or involved vehicles. These fires accounted for an estimated 3,420 deaths, 2,810 of which occurred in structures and 610 in non-structure, vehicle, or outside fires. The 21 catastrophic multiple-death fires in this report accounted for 0.002 percent of the total estimated number of fires and 4.4 percent of the total fire deaths in the U.S. in 2017.
The largest loss-of-life catastrophic multiple-death fire in 2017 was a wildfire incident in Northern California, referred to by Cal Fire as the 2017 October Fire Siege, that killed 44 people, destroyed an estimated 8,900 structures, burned 245,000 acres (99,147 hectares) or 335 square miles (868 square kilometers), forced the evacuation of over 100,000 people, and caused property damage of over $9 billion.
Leading up to that fire event, AccuWeather reported a wetter than normal winter for 2016-2017 in California, which helped end a five-year drought....