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Residential Building Fire Causes (2015-2024)

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National estimates

The 2024 national estimates for the leading causes of residential building fires show that there were:

  • 160,300 cooking fires.
  • 34,400 other unintentional, careless fires.
  • 27,200 heating fires.
  • 26,400 electrical malfunction fires.

Overall trends

Overall trends in the leading fire causes for the 10-year period of 2015 to 2024 show the following:

  • 15% decrease in residential cooking fires.
    • Cooking was the leading cause of residential building fires for the 10-year period.
  • 40% increase in residential other unintentionally or carelessly set fires.
  • 26% decrease in residential heating fires.
  • 5% increase in residential electrical malfunction fires.
*Estimated trends in time-series data may be skewed by high-impact outlier events that inflate cumulative variance, and the magnitude of these trends may appear artificially amplified or minimized due to the scaling of the graphic.

Leading causes of residential building fires (2015-2024)

Leading causes of residential building fires (2015-2024)
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Cooking 193400 183300 191800 192700 178100 192600 170000 178600 167800 160300
Heating 41200 35100 33800 35700 33100 33000 32200 34800 27900 27200
Other unintentional, careless 24500 24200 26400 28600 27200 27800 29800 33000 31500 34400
Electrical malfunction 24500 23500 24100 25700 24200 23400 24200 26100 23700 26400