Initial lInvestigation Into the Danger to Life of Structure Fires

A Report from the Year 1910 to UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Attempting to Explain the Destructive Force of Fire, Its Causes and Tendencies

The report assumed the position that much lower rates of property loss were reported from old European cities in comparison to American cities as attributable to fireproof masonry construction being a primary building material. The report finds the greatest loss of property per capita in the United States exists in the South and Midwest, where wood frame construction was (and remains) the prevailing structure condition. The great property loss to the South remains even in the year 2010, as evidenced by the NFPA in the 2010 report. Another notable fact of these reports is that the greatest per capita cost of the losses is in low density regions, and concerning fire deaths there are approximately double the rate per million persons occuring in the American South (13/1mil.) and slightly fewer in the Midwest (12.6/1mil.) though even here still much higher than in the Northeast (6.8/1mil.). Also of note, is the conclusion that deaths in the West (5.7/1mil.) are the lowest, though many western cities are somewhat more dense than the those of the South. The greatest incidence of fire is in the South and Midwest at 4.9 per thousand persons, and property losses are greatest.