Fire deaths in Virginia: a review

Most of the fire/flame mortality patterns found to exist nationally are found also in Virginia. Almost all deaths are due to fire or flame accidents and not to accidents involving hot but non-burning materials. A major portion of fire/flame deaths (87% annually) is caused by fires at home. Children and older persons are the two population groups who suffer most from fire/flame accidents in the home. Non-white males have a higher fire death rate than non-white females, although both trends are greater than expected, based on a random death pattern over the general population. Even within five separate age groups, non-whites consistently exhibit a higher death rate than predicted. Mortality trends for whites are lower than expected, based on population estimates, with white males showing a greater proportion of fire deaths than do white females.