NFPA Journal - September/October 2017 - 73

Between 1977 and 2016, the number of civilian injuries
ranged from a peak of 31,325 in 1979 to a low of 14,660 in
2016, a decrease of 53.2 percent. Since 1997, civilian injuries
have remained below 35,000 per year, below 19,000 since
2002, and below 16,000 since 2013.

PROPERTY LOSS
NFPA estimates that the 1,342,000 fires to which the fire
service responded in 2016 caused $10.6 billion in property
damage, a decrease of 25.7 percent compared to 2015. It is
worth noting that a major wildfire in Gatlinburg, Tennessee,
in 2016 caused $911 million in direct property damage. The
direct property loss from this wildfire was unprecedented for
the eastern U.S., and something local authorities need to pay
attention to into the future.
Fires in structures not related to wildfires resulted in $7.9
billion in property damage, a decrease of 23.2 percent from
2015. Each structure fire resulted in an average property loss
of $16,610, a decrease of 19 percent from the previous year.
From 1977 to 2016, excluding the events of September 11,
2001, the average loss per structure fire was $3,757 in 1977
and $16,610 in 2016, for an overall increase of 342 percent.
When property loss is adjusted for inflation in 2016 dollars, however, the increase in the average structure fire loss
between 1977 and 2016 is 12.1 percent.

Of the 2016 property loss in structures, $5.7 billion
occurred in home structures, a decrease of 18.8 percent
from 2015. An estimated $4.9 billion of this loss occurred
in one- and two-family homes, a decrease of 14.8 percent.
An estimated loss of $711 million occurred in apartments or
other multifamily housing including condominiums. While
apartment property loss decrease by 38.8 percent, from the
previous year, the number of fires in apartments remained
unchanged from 2015.
Other property damage results for 2016 include $436 million in store and office properties, a decrease of 31.3 percent;
$419 million in industrial and manufacturing properties, a
54.7 percent decrease; $933 million in highway vehicles, a
24.6 percent decrease; and $423 million in other vehicles,
a 26.9 percent decrease. There was a 200 percent increase
in other structure properties, to $195 million, partly due
to three major fires in Arizona-one in Phoenix and two in
the town of Gilbert, part of the Phoenix metropolitan area.
The Phoenix fire and one of the Gilbert fires occurred on
construction sites that were structures other than buildings
under construction; the second Gilbert fire involved a building structure under construction.
It should be kept in mind that property loss totals can
change significantly from year to year due to the impact
of occasional large-loss fires. NFPA provides an annual

Intentionally set
fires in structures
resulted in

310
51.2
percent
civilian deaths in
2016, an increase of

Firefighters at the scene of a fire at a lumberyard in Pennsylvania.
An estimated $10.6 billion in property damage occurred as a result
of fires in the U.S. in 2016. (Sean Simmers/PennLive.com via AP)

over the
previous year.

N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - September/October 2017