When researching the fire data, I stumbled across a few miscellaneous items. None are worth a full column, so what follows is a grab bag of fire factoids.
North Dakota: Farm Equipment Fire Capital of the US
I talked about vehicle fires previously. One of the more obscure subcategories of vehicle fires is “Off-road vehicle or heavy equipment”; this makes up just 0.7% of all fires. But in North Dakota, this category represents 5.4% of fires – that’s 7 times above the national average. Looking at the underlying data, it’s clear that most of the fires in this subcategory are “heavy equipment”, not “off-road vehicle” (no idea why they lumped them together). In most states, heavy equipment vehicles means farm equipment (e.g., tractors). Here’s a map of relative frequency of these fires:
It’s not surprising that farm-heavy states have lots of farm equipment fires. It also seems that northern states have more of these fires too (not sure why). North Dakota is heavily farmed (87% of land) and about as far north as you can go. So it’s understandable that it leads the way. But it’s a mystery why it has so many more equipment fires as anyone else (twice as many as Iowa, the next leading state). Of course, I’ve already discovered that North Dakota is an outlier in two other ways, so why not a third? I’m really not picking on North Dakota, it just keeps showing up in singular ways.
It’s a Dumpster Fire!
I know as a meme “dumpster fire” peaked several years ago. But they do happen in real life – 34,915 reported in 2022. That’s about 2.8% of all fires. Which state is the dumpster fire capital? It’s a tie, between Arizona and Nevada.
They’re pretty rare in the Northeastern states, more common as you move west. Maybe related to hot/dry weather? (although, that doesn’t explain Alaska’s fairly high rate).
Also, there were 76 firefighter injuries when putting out dumpster fires (none too serious). It’s all fun and memes until someone gets hurt.
Department of Irony
In 2022,
- There were 288 fires at fire stations.
- Thirteen fires were started by smoke detectors or fire alarms, 22 by fire extinguishing equipment.
- On November 1 in Tampa, Florida, an aquarium was the cause of a fire in a business office.
