Fire Deaths by State, 2013 to 2023: Rates per Million and 10-Year Change

Fire deaths by state, 2021 to 2023: rate per million residents

Pooling three years, fire death rates ranged from 6.4 to 33.6 per million across the 45 ranked jurisdictions, with the District of Columbia at 39.5. High rates cluster in the South-Central states and Alaska; low rates in the Northeast corridor, the Mountain West and California.

Fire death (this report): A death recorded on a U.S. death certificate where exposure to fire, smoke, fire products or explosion was the underlying cause or a contributing cause (ICD-10 F63.1, W39-W40, X00-X09, X75-X76, X96-X97, Y25-Y26, Y35.1), counted by state of occurrence. This is the definition USFA applies to the NCHS mortality file.

In 2021 to 2023, the District of Columbia recorded 80 fire deaths, a pooled rate of 39.5 per million. Alaska recorded 74 (33.6 per million), Mississippi 261 (29.6), Oklahoma 336 (27.8) and Arkansas 248 (27.1).

The lowest ranked rates in 2021 to 2023 were New Jersey (6.4 per million, 179 deaths), Massachusetts (6.5, 138), Utah (6.9, 70), California (7.4, 872) and Florida (7.9, 532).

Large states carry the largest counts even at low rates. Texas recorded 988 fire deaths in 2021 to 2023 at 10.9 per million, and California 872 at 7.4.

• Texas: 988 deaths in 2021 to 2023, 10.9 per million, rank 34, up 24.4% on 2013 to 2015.
• Florida: 532 deaths, 7.9 per million, rank 41, up 14.1%.
• Georgia: 523 deaths, 16.0 per million, rank 19, up 1.3%.
• North Carolina: 496 deaths, 15.4 per million, rank 20, up 13.6%.
• New York: 656 deaths, 11.1 per million, rank 32, up 24.1%.

Together those five states recorded 3,195 fire deaths in 2021 to 2023, 24.3% of the national total of 13,133.

Ten-year change: fire death rates rose in 39 of 42 jurisdictions

Comparing 2013 to 2015 with 2021 to 2023, the national rate rose 21.9%. Increases were broad: only three jurisdictions fell, and the largest relative rises were in Alaska and the West.

Alaska's pooled rate rose from 17.6 to 33.6 per million (+90.6%), New Mexico's from 11.3 to 18.0 (+58.6%) and the District of Columbia's from 26.6 to 39.5 (+48.4%).

Ranking did not change much at the top: Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, West Virginia and Alabama were high in both windows. The ordering at the bottom was also stable, with New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and Utah low in both.

New Jersey fell from 7.1 to 6.4 per million (-9.4%), Massachusetts from 6.8 to 6.5 (-3.2%) and Virginia from 10.6 to 10.4 (-2.2%). Georgia (+1.3%) and Indiana (+2.9%) were nearly flat.

Census divisions: East South Central leads, New England lowest

Grouping states into the nine Census divisions, the 2021 to 2023 rate ran from 8.6 per million in New England to 24.1 in East South Central, a 2.8-fold gap. Every division rose against 2013 to 2015.

East South Central (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee) recorded 1,420 fire deaths in 2021 to 2023. West South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas) recorded 1,860 at 14.8 per million.

The Pacific division rose 42.8% and the Mountain division 40.6%, the two largest increases, though both remain below the national rate of 13.1.

How many people die in fires each year in the U.S.

On the any-mention definition, 3,362 to 3,810 people died in fires each year from 2013 to 2020, then 4,316 to 4,446 a year in 2021 to 2023. The unintentional-fire subset (X00-X09) tracks the same pattern through 2020.

USFA reports the U.S. fire death rate at 13.1 per million in 2023 and 13.3 in 2022, against a decade low of 10.5 in 2015 and 14.8 in 2000 (USFA).

Hawaii's 2023 count of 112 deaths and published rate of 78.0 per million are dominated by the Lahaina fire on Maui. The National Interagency Coordination Center reports 100 confirmed deaths in that fire. USFA withheld Hawaii's counts in 2021 and 2022 because each was below 10.

The published state counts add up to within a few dozen deaths of the national total each year; the difference equals the deaths in states shown as fewer than 10.

Fire death rate by age and type of fire

Fire death risk rises steeply with age, and most unintentional fire deaths involve a fire in a building. People 65 and older are 44.7% of deaths but 17.7% of residents.

Across 2014 to 2020, people 65 and older accounted for 43.4% of unintentional fire deaths (X00-X09) and 15.7% of person-years in our CDC WONDER query. On USFA's broader definition the 65+ share rose from 38.1% in 2014 to 44.7% in 2023.

Of 14,157 unintentional fire deaths in 2016 to 2020, 11,410 (80.6%) were coded X00, uncontrolled fire in a building or structure. X01, uncontrolled fire outside a building, which includes wildfires, accounted for 407 (2.9%). Males were 59.7% of these deaths (8,445 of 14,157).

Because building fires dominate the count, smoke alarm presence and function sit at the center of most fire death investigations. Product recall history for alarms is tracked in our fire extinguisher and smoke alarm recalls report, and inspection intervals for commercial systems are summarized on the fire alarm inspection page.

Why CDC and USFA fire death numbers differ

USFA's state table is not built from fire department reports: it is drawn from the same NCHS death records as CDC WONDER, but it counts any death where fire was the underlying or a contributing cause and adds intentional and explosion codes.

USFA's state table counts deaths where codes F63.1, W39-W40, X00-X09, X75-X76, X96-X97, Y25-Y26 or Y35.1 appear as the underlying cause or a contributing factor (USFA). That covers unintentional fires, intentional self-harm and assault by fire or explosion, fireworks and other explosions.

Querying the same code list as underlying cause only, CDC WONDER returns 3,254 deaths for 2014, 94.9% of USFA's 3,428. The remainder are deaths where fire contributed but another condition was certified as the underlying cause.

The narrower CDC category most often quoted, X00-X09 (exposure to smoke, fire and flames, unintentional), returned 2,701 deaths for 2014 and made up 76.6% to 79.6% of the USFA count in each year from 2013 to 2020.

Fire department reporting (NFIRS) and NFPA's national survey estimate civilian fire deaths from incident reports, a third method. Those counts are not published as state rates on the USFA pages we used and are not mixed into this panel.

State of occurrence: USFA tabulates deaths by the state where the death occurred, which can differ from the state of residence, for example when a burn patient dies in a regional burn center in another state.

Fire deaths by state and year, 2013 to 2023

The full panel of counts behind every rate on this page, one row per state and one column per year, with suppressed cells left as published.

State-by-state findings

1. The District of Columbia had the highest fire death rate in 2021 to 2023 at 39.5 deaths per million residents (80 deaths), based on NCHS records published by USFA.^{[1][13][14][15]}
2. Alaska had the highest rate of any state in 2021 to 2023 at 33.6 per million (74 deaths), up 90.6% from 17.6 in 2013 to 2015, the largest rise of any jurisdiction.^{[1][5][6][7][13][14]}
3. New Jersey had the lowest ranked rate in 2021 to 2023 at 6.4 per million, so Alaska's rate was 5.2 times New Jersey's.^{[1][13][14][15]}
4. Texas recorded the most fire deaths of any state in 2021 to 2023 (988), followed by California (872), Pennsylvania (680) and New York (656).^[1][13][14]
5. U.S. fire deaths rose from 3,790 in 2020 to 4,316 in 2021, a 13.9% one-year increase, and stayed above 4,300 in 2022 (4,446) and 2023 (4,371).^{[1][12][13][14]}
6. The U.S. pooled fire death rate rose 21.9% between 2013 to 2015 (10.7 per million) and 2021 to 2023 (13.1 per million).^{[1][5][6][7][13][14][15][16]}
7. Rates rose in 39 of 42 jurisdictions with complete data; only New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia fell.^[1][5][13]
8. The three Southern Census divisions together had a pooled rate of 15.0 per million in 2021 to 2023, against 8.6 in New England.^{[1][13][14][15][17]}
9. The Pacific (+42.8%) and Mountain (+40.6%) divisions had the largest increases, while the South Atlantic rose 9.2%.^{[1][5][13][15][16]}
10. In 2016 to 2020, 80.6% of unintentional fire deaths (11,410 of 14,157) were coded to uncontrolled fire in a building or structure; fires outside buildings, including wildfires, were 2.9%.^[19]
11. People 65 and older were 44.7% of U.S. fire deaths in 2023 and 17.7% of the population; their fire death rate was 33.0 per million.^[2]
12. People 85 and older died in unintentional fires at 35.9 per million in 2014 to 2020, 4.2 times the all-ages rate of 8.6.^[19]
13. Unintentional smoke, fire and flames (X00-X09) as underlying cause made up 76.6% to 79.6% of the any-mention fire death count each year from 2013 to 2020.^[19][5][12]
14. Males accounted for 61.9% of U.S. fire deaths in 2023.^[2]

Rankings and ratios we derived

Download the calculations (CSV)

Executive summary

• The United States recorded 41,666 fire deaths from 2013 to 2023 on the NCHS any-mention definition USFA uses, and 4,371 in 2023 alone (USFA).
• Pooling 2021 to 2023, the highest rates were in the District of Columbia (39.5 per million), Alaska (33.6), Mississippi (29.6), Oklahoma (27.8) and Arkansas (27.1).
• The lowest ranked rates were in New Jersey (6.4), Massachusetts (6.5), Utah (6.9), California (7.4) and Florida (7.9).
• The national pooled rate rose from 10.7 per million in 2013 to 2015 to 13.1 in 2021 to 2023, a 21.9% increase, with most of the step coming in 2021.
• Of 42 jurisdictions with complete data in both windows, 39 rose and 3 fell: New Jersey (-9.4%), Massachusetts (-3.2%) and Virginia (-2.2%).
• The East South Central division (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee) had a pooled rate of 24.1 per million in 2021 to 2023, 2.8 times New England's 8.6.
• Uncontrolled fire in a building or structure accounted for 80.6% of unintentional fire deaths in 2016 to 2020 in our CDC WONDER query.
• People 65 and older accounted for 44.7% of 2023 fire deaths, up from 38.1% in 2014.

Frequently asked questions

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Methodology

Question and scope. This report measures deaths from fire by U.S. state and how state rates changed from 2013 to 2023. Workplace fire and explosion deaths are covered in a separate report and are not analyzed here beyond their inclusion in the all-cause totals.

Primary records. State counts come from the National Center for Health Statistics mortality files as tabulated by the U.S. Fire Administration, which publishes one state table per data year. Only the latest year stays on the USFA site, so we recovered each earlier year's table from its archived copy (Internet Archive snapshots of usfa.fema.gov, listed as sources s4 to s14), parsed every state row, and kept the last snapshot for each data year. Every release states the same ICD-10 code set: F63.1, W39-W40, X00-X09, X75-X76, X96-X97, Y25-Y26 and Y35.1 as underlying cause or contributing factor, by state of occurrence. The 2013 and 2014 snapshots cite the same NCHS mortality files without repeating the code list. Data year 2012 was not recoverable and is not used.

CDC WONDER. We queried the CDC WONDER Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2020 database (D76) through its documented XML API, which accepts national queries only; state, region and urbanization grouping is refused by the API, and the 2018 onward single-race database (D158) did not accept our scripted request parameters. We therefore used WONDER for national detail (year, age group, sex, ICD-10 subcategory) for 2010 to 2020 and used the USFA tables for state geography. Requests were spaced at least 15 seconds apart, as WONDER requires, and suppressed cells (fewer than 10 deaths) were left suppressed.

Rates. We recomputed every rate from the published counts using Census Bureau July 1 population estimates: Vintage 2020 for 2013 to 2019 and Vintage 2025 for 2020 to 2023. Pooled rates are total deaths over total population-years in a three-year window. Our single-year 2023 rates can differ by 0.1 to 0.2 from USFA's because USFA used Vintage 2023 populations. Rates are crude and not age adjusted.

Suppression and conflicts. USFA does not publish counts below 10. We never imputed those cells. In pooled windows we carry them as 0 to 9 deaths, show the resulting rate range, and leave the jurisdiction out of rankings and change calculations. Division totals count suppressed cells as 0 and say so.

Check. Our recomputed rates matched the state rates in USFA's 2023 workbook within 0.25 per million for 512 of 513 state-years with a published count; the exception, the District of Columbia in 2020 (difference 0.8), reflects the newer population vintage. This confirms the archived counts were transcribed correctly.

Derived metrics. All formulas, inputs and results are in derived_metrics.csv, and every table on this page is a CSV built by the scripts in the scripts folder from the raw files in raw/.

Limitations. State-by-age, urban and rural, and post-2020 cause-detail breakdowns were not available from the sources we could query, so age and type-of-fire findings are national. Counts are by state of occurrence. A two-window comparison does not separate population aging from other causes. This page reports statistics and is not safety, legal or medical advice.

Last updated 2026-10-27. We will add data year 2024 when USFA or NCHS publish state counts.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, engineering, financial or investment advice. Requirements depend on the code edition your state and local fire marshal have adopted; confirm with your authority having jurisdiction.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (20)

• [1] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), from NCHS mortality data. Fire deaths, rates and relative risk by state (2023). 2023 (page last reviewed April 3, 2025). Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [2] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). Fire death and injury data sets, 2023 (XLSX). 2000 to 2023. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [3] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA). Fire Death and Injury Risk (national rates 2014 to 2023). 2014 to 2023. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [4] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2011 data (archived release, snapshot 20151014). 2011. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [5] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2013 data (archived release, snapshot 20160528). 2013. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [6] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2014 data (archived release, snapshot 20170621). 2014. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [7] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2015 data (archived release, snapshot 20180712). 2015. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [8] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2016 data (archived release, snapshot 20190728). 2016. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [9] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2017 data (archived release, snapshot 20201028). 2017. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [10] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2018 data (archived release, snapshot 20210911). 2018. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [11] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2019 data (archived release, snapshot 20220617). 2019. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [12] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2020 data (archived release, snapshot 20230501). 2020. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [13] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2021 data (archived release, snapshot 20240821). 2021. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [14] U.S. Fire Administration (FEMA), via Internet Archive. USFA state fire death table, 2022 data (archived release, snapshot 20250324). 2022. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [15] U.S. Census Bureau. State population totals, Vintage 2025 (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA). July 1, 2020 to 2025. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [16] U.S. Census Bureau. State population totals, Vintage 2020 (NST-EST2020-ALLDATA). July 1, 2010 to 2020. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [17] U.S. Census Bureau. Census Regions and Divisions of the United States. standing definition. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [18] National Interagency Coordination Center. Wildland Fire Summary and Statistics Annual Report 2023. 2023. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [19] CDC WONDER, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death, 1999-2020 (database D76), queried through the WONDER API. 2010 to 2020 (API endpoint https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D76). Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [20] CDC WONDER. CDC WONDER API for Data Query Web Service. documentation. Accessed 2026-10-27.