Fire-related deaths in Maine are on the rise this year, and State Fire Marshal Richard McCarthy is hoping a new federal grant will help state officials figure out why.
In the meantime, he said, Maine residents need to do a safety check on home heating systems as winter approaches.
On Monday, a man died in a house fire on Long Island, the latest in a disturbingly upward statewide trend, McCarthy said.
“One fire death is too many,” he said.
According to data from McCarthy’s office, Maine has had 21 fires in 2023 to date, which already beats last year’s total of 19. In 2021, according to the data, there were 27 fire-related deaths, a chilling landmark for recent years that used to be less deadly.
“Twenty-seven is an all-time high for us,” McCarthy said.
Decades ago, fire deaths were more common, McCarthy said, with annual fire-related deaths numbering close to 500 in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. That all changed in 1976, he said, when new law mandated changes to fire codes to require smoke detectors. Since then, he said, the number of fire-related deaths has plummeted to well under 100 by the 21st century.
Now, however, McCarthy said over the past decade or so, those numbers are creeping back up, and he wants to know why. Unfortunately, he added, the data is not broken down to include factors such as the cause of the fire, type of residence and other information.
“Nowhere does it tell us all the intricacies of all of those 27 fatalities,” he said. “What were those made up of? What age group? Single-family homes, multi-family, what were the common factors?”
Now, a new federal grant will fund a study to dive deeper into specifics. McCarthy could not say how large the grant is but said it will fund a fire service and code enforcement capabilities study, beginning in the next few months and lasting a year and a half. Once finished, McCarthy said, he hopes to more ideas on how to prevent tragedies in the future.
“That will give us a true picture of what can we hope to fix with what we have for tools out in the field so to speak,” he said. “At that point, we can hopefully create a plan to have these numbers start to go down.”
In the meantime, with the cold weather arriving in much of Maine, McCarthy warned Mainers to take preventive measures, including the following:
Check smoke detectors. McCarthy called them “our biggest and first lines of defense.” Make sure they are working and have fresh batteries. Replace them if they are more than 10 years old and, if possible, buy newer ones that are wirelessly connected to each other.
Check all heating sources. Make sure they are functioning correctly and clean, including chimneys.
Check to make sure any combustibles, such as blankets or drapes, are at least three feet away from all heat sources. This is especially important when using portable space heaters.
With the holidays coming, make sure that all holiday meal preparation is being done safely.