World Fire Statistics

 What we need fire statistics for ?

All the people on the Earth know many fires to happen on it due to different reasons. These fires do a lot of harm to nature and society as people perish and are injured at fires, materials and spiritual values are annihilated, the quality of the place of inhabitance and the environment is deteriorated.

However, only few people know the true size of a real fire hazard: how often fires occur, what their social, economics and ecological consequences are, how many people perish annually, dwelling houses are destroyed, forest burn down to ashes.

To answer these question exactly it is necessary to register constantly all the fires and their consequences, i.e. to collect definite statistical data.

Different specialists are interested in quit various data connected with fires, their consequences, fire service activity and many other things. For instance, insurance companies are concerned about the frequency of fire occurrence at objects of different purposes and the quantity of the damage caused by these fires.

They are interested in a quick fire units arrival to the scene of a fire that is in the effective fire protection organization. Therefore it is important for them to know statistical data of time of fire appliances arrival to a certain protected object. The town administration is interested in the same data because it is responsible for the fire safety of these objects. It shows a lot of concern about the problems of fire units work loads and their numbers. Insurance companies should be aware of the number of casualties at fires and also at the organization of burn centers.

The manufactures of fire appliances and equipment should be aware of the application frequency of certain kinds of equipment.

The number of such examples may be continued endlessly. All of them testify that humanity is badly fire statistics for the organization of fire fighting. There is no such statistics in the word, so far.

What are fire statistics?

Under this term we include not only statistical data on fires (and details of the process of collecting, processing and analysis) but also their social, economic and ecological consequences, data on members and activities of the fire service, and data on fire prevention and suppression. That is why, in a broader sense of the term “fire statistics,” we may speak about the world statistics of fire safety.

The following are the main sections:

	fire statistics , including types, frequencies, causes, times and places of fire origins, and social, economic and ecological consequences (including direct and indirect damages and number of casualties , both fatal and non-fatal);
	fire service statistics, including fire protection organization and activities, number of firefighters, fire stations and firefighting apparatus (by type), statistics of fire service activity (such as total emergency responses by type, on-duty fatal and non-fatal injuries and illnesses, travel time to a call, and time from arrival to extinguishment)
	statistical aspects of fire safety of products and materials;
	statistics of education and training related to firefighting or fire safety;
	statistical aspects of the effectiveness of methods of controlling, suppressing, and extinguishing different classes of fires;
	statistics of use and production of fire safety technologies and related materials;
	statistics of fire safety science (the number and skill of specialists, directions and intensity of research work, the statistics of fire models and fire service activity, etc.);

Naturally, this enumeration of fire statistics  is far from being complete, but it already testifies to considerable sizes of the information base which is necessary for the effective fire extinction, and hence. We need modern information technologies to collect and use this base property.

We can single out the following levels of fire statistics: planetary, continental, national, regional, municipal, professional, etc.

Who assembles international fire statistics?

According to our estimates, in the beginning of the XXI century there are 6,5−7,5 million fires registered annually, where about 70-75 thousand people die and approximately 1 million people are injured. At the same time it should be noted, that in 2010 there were 6,9 billion people on the Earth and 220 countries

Complete and reliable global fire statistics never even existed in the world before start of the XXI century, but now it is developed with efforts of The World Fire Statistics Centre (WFSC) and the Centre of Fire Statistics (CFS) of CTIF experts.

 The WFSC was established in 1981. Accredited to the UN, it analyzes the «cost of fires», i.e. direct and indirect losses as a result of fire and all types of fire fighting and fire loss prevention and mitigation expenditures. Speaking of fire «costs», according to WFSC data, the cost of fires in the most developed 25 countries of the world it is about 1 % of GNP of each country. The «cost» of fires is understood as aggregate costs of direct and indirect fire damages, upkeep costs of firefighting services, fire protection systems and fire insurance, as well as fire safety research and development costs, publication of special literature etc.

          The CFS of CTIF was organized in 1995 (CTIF was established in 1900) studies fire experience and different aspects of fire service activity in countries all over the world.

World Fire Statistics Center

Established: in 1981 under International Associatiob for the Study of Insurance Economics

Staff: Tony Paish (UK)

Main directions:  study of economic and social losses of fires

Publications: annually reports in English

Headquarters: Geneva

Web: www.genevaassociation.org

Center of Fire Statistics of CTIF

Established: в 1995 году при Международной ассоциации пожарно-спасательных служб (КТИФ)

Staff: Nicolay Brushlinsky, Sergei Sokolov (Russian), Peter Wagner (Germany), John Hall (USA)

Main directions:  situation with fires, parameters of fire services

Publications: annually reports in English, Germany and Russian

Headquarters: Moscow

Web: www.ctif.org

Global indicators of world fire statistics at beginning of XXI century

Earth population – 6,9 bln.inh.

Number of fires per year ≈ 7-8 mln.

Number of fire deaths per year ≈ 85-90 thous.inh.

Number of fire injuries per year ≈  600-800 thous.inh.

Number of fire fighters deaths per year ≈  500

Number of fire fighters injuries per year ≈  250 thous.

Risk for a person to be subjected to dangerous factors of fire in a year :

R1 = 7500000/6900000 = 1,1 [fire/103inh.]

Risk for a person to die in a fire:

 R2 = 85000/75000 = 1,1 [fire death/102 fires]

Risk for a person to die in a fire during a year:

R3 = 85000/69000 = 1,2[fire death/105inh.]

Number of professional fire fighters ≈ 2,5 mln.

Number of voluntary fire fighter ≈ 25 mln.

 Number of engines ≈ 500 thous.

Number of ladders -≈ 50 thous.

 Number of fire stations ≈ 350 thous.

Average number of fires per year in the countries (beginning of XXI century)

Note: There are no data from such the large countries as Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt. Every such country may have from 30 to 50 thous. fires per year 

Average number of fire deaths per year in the countries (beginning of XXI century)

Countries which have most number of fires

Countries which have most number of fire deaths

Distribution fires by fire origin in the countries

Distribution of fire deaths by fire origin in the countries

Economic-statistical evaluation of "costs" of fire

Trends of fire risk (fire deaths per 100 000 inh.) in USSR, Russia, USA, UK, China

and Germany

Dynamics of Earth fire risk