Raleigh fire fighters preparing to fight a fire

Raleigh Fire Department Sees 44 Fewer Fires in 2022

By the Numbers: Raleigh Fire Statistics

Mar 27, 2023

The Raleigh Fire Department keeps a close eye on statistics related to the services we provide to the community. Statistics allow us to focus our efforts on geographical areas that may have a specific public safety need, for instance, and they help us keep track of resources that are needed to mitigate hazards. Thanks to statistics, we know to focus our fire and life safety education efforts on the areas of the city that show a need at any given time.

By maintaining an up-to-date set of statistics, the department can carry out the services we provide at the most efficient and effective ways possible. This allows us to continue to be a safer place to live, work, play and visit for all.

2022 Statistics

The overall good news for 2022 was that Raleigh had 44 fewer fires than in 2021 (1,134 versus 1,178). Our top two fire causes in buildings continued to be unattended cooking and improperly discarded smoking materials. However, the number of both types of instances was lower than in the previous year. RFD responded to 187 cooking fires and 34 smoking fires last year, compared to 215 and 53 in 2021.

The fire department continues to concentrate fire education efforts on these key topics to reduce death, injury, and property loss in Raleigh.

“There continues to be a key component to the fire events that we see most often: human behavior. Unattended cooking fires and improperly discarded smoking material fires can be greatly reduced by simply modifying your behavior,” says Capt. James Pearce from the Raleigh Fire Department. “In a perfect world, every smoker would find a way to safely dispose of their smoking materials and everyone cooking would stay nearby and watch it while doing so. We don’t expect a perfect world but ensuring that we ‘put out’ our smoking materials and we ‘look while cooking’ can greatly reduce these numbers. So when people ask how they could serve our community, here are two simple things that you and your family can do to serve and keep yourself and others safe.”

Monetary loss caused by fires increased to $14.1 million from $12 million. The department’s EMS responses increased by more than 3,800 calls, to 32,330 from 28, 514 in 2021. The continued population growth of the Raleigh metro area was likely to contribute to both increases, says Pearce.

Fire Incident Reports for 2022 and Fourth Quarter of 2022

TYPE	TOTAL FOR 2022	AMOUNT FOR Q4 2022
Cooking Fires	187 fires (44% of all fires in buildings)	43 (40% of fires in buildings)
Smoking Materials Fire	34 fires (8% of all fires in buildings)	8 (7% of fires in buildings)
Approximate Dollar Loss Due to Fire	$14.5 million	$2.9 million
Fire Extinguished by a Sprinkler System	31 fires	9 fires
Fire Department EMS Responses	32,330	8,331
All Fires (brush, vehicle, cooking, etc.)	1,134 (330 residential fires, 99 commercial fires)	308 (85 residential fires, 21 commercial fires)