Behavioral Mitigation of Cooking Fires

About the Report

Fires resulting from cooking continue to be the most common type of fire experienced by U.S. households. This is true for fires reported to fire departments and those handled by private individuals. Cooking fires are also the leading cause of home fire injuries. As a result, the U.S. Fire Administration has partnered with the National Fire Protection Association to research the types of behaviors and sequences of events that lead to cooking fires and develop sound recommendations for behavioral mitigation strategies that will reduce such fires and their resultant injuries and fatalities.

This study of the causes of cooking fires and cooking injuries and the effectiveness of strategies to prevent them also considers as part of its scope cooking burns of all types from all types of products involved in preparing and serving food or drink. Although many cooking injuries result from knives or broken glass and many people are made ill by improperly handled food, these other issues are beyond the scope of this project.

Project Findings

Findings from the project include:

• Cooking equipment was involved in 31 percent of home structure fires reported in 2003.
• Males face a disproportionate risk of cooking fire injury relative to the amount of cooking they do.
• Young children and older adults face a higher risk of death from cooking fires than did other age groups.
• Young children are at high risk from non-fire cooking-related burns.
• Unattended cooking is the single leading factor contributing to cooking fires.
• Many other cooking fires begin because combustibles are too close to cooking heat sources.
• Frying is the cooking method posing the highest risk.
• More than half of the home cooking injuries occur when people try to fight the fire themselves.
• Educational effectiveness may be enhanced by linking burn prevention and fire prevention.
• Technology may be the best long-term solution to dealing with the cooking fire problem.

Cooking Fire Safety Video Clips

Short, educational messages developed based on the research findings of this project for safe home cooking to avoid fires and other burns.

Cooking Fire Safety Presentation

The purpose of this presentation is to convince adults to cook safely by providing information about the cooking fire problem and eight steps that can be taken to prevent cooking fires. The presentation is designed for adult and senior adult audiences. In addition, it may be used for younger adults such as teenagers who have cooking responsibilities in their family.