The intent of this working paper is to identify socioeconomic factors that influence the complex and varied relationships between buildings, humans, and the occurrence of residential fires.

The intent is to identify socioeconomic factors that influence the complex and varied relationships between buildings, humans, and the occurrence of residential fires.

Past research has revealed socioeconomic factors, such as income and education attainment, are correlated with safety, in general, and personal safety, specifically. Narrowing the focus of safety to fire, research has also revealed the incidence of residential fires is correlated with socioeconomic factors such as family income, education attainment, and parental presence. Those fire studies involving more specific types of fires, such fires involving consumer products, household appliances, and other gas or electric products used in and around the home, have not studied the socioeconomic factors that might have been involved in those fires. Studies conducted in the past have revealed the quantity of these types of fires, but those studies did not attempt to determine if there were socioeconomic or climate factors involved in the fires. This research addressed this gap in the literature. This research concluded education had a significant inverse correlation with residential structure fires at the state level involving flammable liquids where the ignition source was a water heater. This research also concluded there was a significant correlation between parental status and residential structure fires involving flammable liquids. This research concluded income did not have a significant correlation with any of the fire variables using partial correlation. This study further concluded climate exhibited a significant inverse correlation with residential structure fires involving flammable liquids were the ignition source was a water heater or gas water heater. Prior research predicted climate (HDD) would have a significant correlation to the rate of fire incidents. This research concluded the climate exhibited an inverse correlation with some of the rates of fire incidents. It is recommended that education and the inspection of flammable liquid fire hazards should be improved in the home in the states having a low HDD such as in the southern United States. Those states with a low HDD exhibited a significant correlation between climate and the incidence of some types of fires. It is also recommended that fire prevention education be focused on single parent families. These recommendations are with the understanding that improved education and inspections may reduce the incidence of fires.

Today's changing and distracted society is at a much higher risk of experiencing a residential cooking fire than ever before. America's fire service has been bound by tradition for many years and the traditional approach of most fire service leaders has been to focus the departmental efforts, resources and time on reacting when events like a residential coming fire occurs. If fire service leaders are truly committed to the safety of their citizens, they will take a proactive approach in preventing events from happening and in preventing harm within their community. The problem was that the Town of Nashville had suffered a large number of residential fires due to cooking. The research and data proved that the citizens living within the Nashville community were almost twice more likely of having a residential cooking fire than U.S. citizens living in other communities.