Citation

Hossain MR, Smirnov O. Appl. Geogr. 2023; 151: e102863.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.apgeog.2022.102863

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Fire is considered as one of the top-most threats of urban safety in United States. Fire incurred losses of $25.6 billion (about $79 per person) and killed 3655 people in 2018 in the U.S. (Evarts, 2019). Approximately twenty-nine thousand fire departments reported 1.3 million fire incidents in National Fire Incident Recording System (NFIRS) in 2017-18 (Evarts, 2019; Evarts & Stein, 2020). About half a million fires were structure fires, and 73 percent of those happened in residential buildings. The U.S. experiences one residential fire in every 87 s (Evarts, 2019; USFA, 2020, pp. 1–13). The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reported a roughly 4 percent increase in residential fires and a 13 percent increase in intentionally set structural fires in 2018. Residential fires pose the greatest harm to human health and increase the risk of fatal injuries among all types of fires (Ceyhan et al., 2013). Public safety is one of the foremost concerns of the government, but it is difficult to assess the occurrences of residential fires without knowing the spatial profiles of fire hazard-prone areas over time.

In recent decades, fire incident databases have been well documented, allowing researchers to study the fire hazard scenario at all levels. Fire loss and fire fatalities have also increased by 90.6 and 20.5 percent respectively between the period of 2009–2019 though estimated fire deaths was 46 percent lower in 2020 compared to 1980 (Ahrens & Evarts, 2021; Evarts, 2019; USFA, 2020, pp. 1–13)

Language: en