Summary of NFPA's Fire Loss report

	1,550,500 fires were attended by public fire departments, a slight decrease of 2.2 percent from the year before.
	526,000 fires occurred in structures, a slight increase of 1.3 percent.
	410,500 fires or 78 percent of all structure fires occurred in residential properties.
	297,000 fires occurred in vehicles, a decrease of 4.8 percent from the year before.
	727,500 fires occurred in outside properties, a decrease of 3.4 percent.
	3,900 civilian fire deaths occurred in 2004, a very slight decrease of 0.6 percent or virtually no change from a year ago.
	3,190 civilian fire deaths occurred in the home, a slight increase of 1.4 percent.
	520 civilians died in highway vehicle fires.
	80 civilians died in nonresidential structure fires.
	$8,314,000,000 of property damage occurred in structure fires.
	$5,948,000,000 of property loss occurred in residential properties.
	Intentionally set structure fires resulted in $714,000,000 in property loss, an increase of 3.2 percent from last year.
	Read NFPA's "Fire Loss in the United States During 2004" report, (63 KB).

Definition of Terms

Death: An injury that occurred as a direct result of a fire that is fatal or becomes fatal within one year.

Fire: Any instance of uncontrolled burning. Includes combustion explosions and fires out on arrival. Excludes controlled burning (whether authorized or not), over pressure rupture without combustion, mutual aid responses, smoke scares, and hazardous responses (e.g., oil spill without fire).

Injury: Physical damage a person suffers as a direct result of fire and requires (or should require) treatment by a practitioner of medicine (physician, nurse, paramedic, EMT) within one year of the incident (regardless of whether treatment was actually received), or results in at least one day of restricted activity immediately following the incident. Examples of injuries resulting from fire are smoke inhalation, burns, wounds and punctures, fractures, heart attacks (resulting from stress under fire condition), strains, and sprains.

Property Damage: Includes all forms of direct loss to contents, structure, machinery, a vehicle, vegetation, or anything else involved in the fire but not indirect losses, such as business interruption or temporary shelter provisions.

Structure: An assembly of materials forming a construction for occupancy or use in such a manner as to serve a specific purpose. A building is a form of structure. Open platforms, bridges, roof assemblies over open storage or process areas, tents, air-supported, and grandstands are other forms of structures.

Vehicles, Highway, and Other: Fires in these instances may have been associated with an accident, however, reported casualties and property loss should be the direct result of the fire only. Highway vehicles include any vehicle designed to operate normally on highways, e.g., automobiles, motorcycles, buses, trucks, trailers (not mobile homes on foundations), etc. Other vehicles include trains, boats and ships, aircraft, and farm and construction vehicles.