Smoking related home fires, deaths and injuries

The US Fire Administration released a report earlier this month identifying the significant relationship between smoking and fires in residential housing.  ICFR urges you to be extremely careful when smoking in your home, never smoke in bed and always ensure that smoking materials are properly extinguished.
 
According to the report, an estimated 7,600 smoking-related fires in residential buildings occur annually in the United States, resulting in an estimated average of 365 deaths, 925 injuries, and $326 million in property loss. While smoking-related fires account for only 2 percent of all residential building fires, they are a leading cause of fire deaths, accounting for 14 percent of fire deaths in residential buildings. In addition, cigarettes are, by far, the leading type of smoking material involved in residential smoking fires and account for 86 percent of these fires. Finally, residential building smoking-related fires occur most often in the afternoon and evening hours, peaking from 2 to 3 p.m. Forty-two percent of smoking-related fires in residential buildings occur from noon to 8 p.m., however, the smoking-related fires that occur in the late evening and early morning tend to be the most deadly.