QUINCY, Mass. — According to the National Fire Protection Association Journal, firefighters responded to a vehicle fire every two minutes in 2005. The article also sites a survey conducted by NFPA that lists vehicle fires as the cause of 14 percent of civilian fire deaths and eight percent of civilian fire injuries.
Although there are some examples of high death rates in vehicle fires, according to the journal, these incidents are often overlooked as the number of fatalities is typically one or two people. The most common demographic affected by vehicle fires are teens to young adults and while collisions or overturned vehicles make up only three percent of vehicle fires, they contribute 58 percent of related deaths.
According to the NFPA, emergency vehicles are not excluded from the statistics. Two percent of documented vehicle fires were general use, dump or fire trucks. At the other end of the spectrum, 79 percent of involved vehicles were cars, taxis, limos or ambulances.
To mitigate the number of vehicle fires and related fatalities, the NFPA Journal says members of the fire community must return some focus to non-fatal or fewer fatality incidents. In the future, fire departments must also learn how to operate safely conduct a vehicle rescue while taking into consideration alternative fuel types such as hydrogen, an extremely explosive substance.