• Appliances
• Campus and dorm fires
• Candles
• Carbon monoxide
• Children and fire
• Cooking
• Electrical safety
• Emergency preparedness
• Escape planning
• Fire extinguishers
• Fireworks
• Gas, propane, other fuels
• Heating
• High-rise buildings
• Homeland Security
• Home fire sprinklers
• Intentional fires and arson
• Reports and statistics
• Lightning
• Mine fires and explosions
• Natural disasters
• Nightclubs/assembly occupancies
• Nursing homes
• Older adults
• Other occupancies
• People with disabilities
• Seasonal safety
• Smoke alarms
• Smoking material-related fires
• Unintentional injuries
• Vehicle fires
• Wildland fires

Intentional fires and arson

Intentional fires by time of day and incident type, 2003-2006  See larger image.

Fire departments responded to an estimated 51,840 intentional structure fire annually during 2003-2006.  These fires resulted in 377 civilian deaths, 1,115 civilian injuries and an estimated $898.1 million direct property damage.

Although 3 of every 4 intentional fires are started outside most of the intentional fire casualties and property loss resulted from structure fires.

Half of all intentional structure fires are started in the home. These fires resulted in 85% of the civilian deaths, 82% of the civilian injuries, and 64% of the direct property damage from intentional structure fires.

The bedroom is the leading area of origin for intentional home structure fires, while bathrooms are the leading areas in public properties such as stores, offices or schools.

Source: NFPA's "Intentional Fires" report by Jennifer D. Flynn, May 2009.

• All visitors: Download a fact sheet on intentional fires and arson. (PDF, 51 KB)

• PODCAST:  A look at NFPA's new outreach program to combat arson a concern for communities across the nation

Free presentation
As a part of its 2008 Urban Fire Safety Project, NFPA worked with the Columbus (OH) Division of Fire to produce the “Preventing Arson Together ” (8.2. MB) PowerPoint presentation. Although there are many approaches to solve the arson problem, this program focuses on actions people in neighborhoods can to do to help prevent a variety of types of arson. This presentation is designed for fire and life safety educators to present. 

View the presentation in the “Notes Pages” mode to see both the slide and the script to use. Feel free to add local statistics and photos to the presentation; the photos and graphics in the presentation are copyrighted materials to be used only in the “Prevention Arson Together” presentation. For more information, please contact NFPA's Sharon Gamache.

In this Section:

Reports and statistics NFPA reports and other research on intentional fires.