I'd like to know the percentage of fires in commercial buildings which
result in a call to the fire department.
 
I found an estimate of 4% for residential fires, as reported in the
1984 National Sample Survey of Unreported Residential Fires, Final
Technical Report for the CPSC (i.e., 96% of fires are extinguished
without a call to the fire department).  I was unable to find a
comparable estimate for commercial building fires.
 
Commercial buildings are defined as all buildings except single and
multi-family dwellings (i.e., excluding houses, apartments, and
condominiums).

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 14 Feb 2006 11:23 PST

hlg111-ga,

From what I can see, the consensus on this topic is that there is very
little reliable information, and much of what exists comes from the
1984 report that you already cited.

I did find an article the cites a FEMA estimate that for every fire
that gets reported, there are about three unreported fires (the
article doesn't distinguish residential from commercial).  Frankly,
the 3-out-of-4 number seems a lot more common-sensical than the 4%
number you mentioned.

I searched the FEMA site and other sources, but did not see a formal
reference for this statistic.  However, there is some data on the FEMA
site that suggests the 3-out-of-4 estimate is reasonable for the
number of unreported fires.

Please let me know how you'd like to proceed, given that specific data
on unreported fires are apparently almost impossible to come by.

Thanks,

pafalafa-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 14 Feb 2006 11:46 PST

P.S.  I misread your 4% number...sorry about that.

The FEMA information I mentioned indicates that about 75% of fires go unreported.

Again, let me know your thoughts on how to proceed.

paf

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Clarification of Question by hlg111-ga on 14 Feb 2006 12:27 PST

Pafalafa,

Thanks for your response.  If you can find me the formal reference for
the FEMA statistic, then we'll be done.

Thank you!