The January/February issue of Men’s Health includes an article by Michael Perry with photographs by Eric Ogden titled “Voices from the Flames.” The article contains a lot of statistics that I didn’t know about fires in contemporary America. As a statistician, I like articles with statistics. While this article included a satisfying number of statistics, graphs that would make them easy to understand were absent. So in the interests of communicating the importance of fire safety, I thought I’d take a minute to make some graphs myself, inspired by some of the statistics that Perry uses. Communicating the meaning of statistics is one of the powerful purposes of Minitab.
Perry reminds his target readers, presumably mostly men, that “of the nearly 2,500 Americans who die in residential fires every year, 57% are male.” That statistic is calculated from the National Fire Incident Reporting System database and can be found in this summary report about civilian fire fatalities. Of course, that information isn’t very meaningful without a little bit more context. If 57% of Americans are male, then it wouldn’t be surprising that 57% of civilian fire fatalities are male. However, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quick Facts in 2012 the bureau estimated that 50.8% of Americans are female. Here’s what that looks like:
See how the bars are close in height for the population, but not for civilian fire deaths? That suggests that there’s a relationship between gender that doesn’t bode well for those of us with Y chromosomes.
Deaths and Fire SourcesPerry’s article reports that “Candle fires kill 166 people a year,” which is not an insignificant amount when you consider that that 166 is more than 1 in 20 of the approximately 2,500 Americans who die in fires each year. But it’s really interesting when you put that figure in the context of some more data about fire sources and deaths. Here’s what that looks like:
Candles are certainly a cause for concern. No one should play with candles or leave them unattended. But in terms of risk, smoking seems like it deserves greater consideration. While smoking leads to very few fires relative to other causes, those fires are among the most likely to lead to a fatality. (See links at the end of the article for the data I graphed.)
Get Out FastPerry’s article points out how much shorter the time people have to escape a residential fire has become. “’In 1970, your average escape time was around 17 minutes,’ says Larry McKenna, a USFA researcher. ‘Today, it’s as little as three minutes.’” By themselves, those numbers sound dire, but put them on a graph and you get a striking picture of the difference.
What’s flashover, you might ask? I’m sure there’s a technical definition, but if you like visuals then you can’t do better than to watch the video from Underwriter’s Laboratory that gives the times that I recorded in the above graph.
It never would have occurred to me that fire safety wouldn’t be a consideration in making modern furniture, but apparently fire safety’s fallen by the wayside in favor of other considerations.
SummaryIt’s easy for me to behave as if fires can only happen in other people’s homes, and that only careless people are in real danger from fires. Then along comes an article in popular media that exposes my ignorance about what fires are really like in the contemporary America.
Let’s applaud Michael Perry for his use of statistics to draw attention to fire safety in his article. Even if you don’t read Perry’s article, I hope the Minitab graphs above will still inspire you to spend a few minutes with some of the reputable organizations on the Internet that promote fire safety:
National Fire Protection Association
BonusPrefer some less grim Minitab graphs? Check out some graphing tips that celebrate Valentine's Day with Minitab.
Data sources for my second graph: The image of the airmen from the 18th Civil Engineer Squadron Fire Department training is by Tech. Sgt. Rey Ramon and is in the public domain.