• An estimated 10,000 residential building attic fires are reported to U.S. fire departments each year and cause an estimated 30 deaths, 125 injuries and $477 million in property loss.

• Residential building attic fires are considered part of the residential fire problem and comprise approximately 2 percent of all residential building fires.

• Almost all residential building attic fires are non-confined fires (99 percent).

• One- and two-family residential buildings account for 90 percent of residential attic fires.

• Electrical malfunction is the leading cause of residential building attic fires (43 percent), followed by natural fires (16 percent).

• A third of all residential building attic fires spread to involve the entire building. Only 2 percent extend beyond the building to adjacent properties.

• Residential building attic fires are most prevalent in December (12 percent) and January (11 percent) and peak between the hours of 4 and 8 p.m.

• Electrical arcing is the most common heat source in residential building attic fires (37 percent).

Attics are not commonly used as occupied spaces, and as a result they usually do not have smoke alarms or heat sensors. When a fire occurs in an attic, it is common that

it will go unnoticed until smoke or flames, escaping from the roof, are visible from the outside. Sometimes, however, enough smoke will reach the smoke alarms on the lower levels, setting them off.

Because they can take longer to detect, attic fires are very dangerous for firefighters and residents alike. The delayed detection allows the fire to become larger in size, ultimately causing more damage. The attic provides the fire with an array of fuel sources like open wood support beams and storage items.

In attic fires, multiple areas of the attic tend to be involved. The fire tends to spread among the wood fairly easily and can be concealed under the insulation. This makes it very important that firefighters perform a thorough check of the attic to ensure that no hotspots, embers or smoldering debris are still present.

The location of the attic provides many difficulties for firefighters when extinguishing the fire. Careful planning goes into deciding the best way to extinguish an attic fire. Firefighters must decide whether to fight the fire from above or below, both of which present many difficulties. In both instances, firefighters have to consider that roofs or ceilings may collapse. The large amounts of water used to extinguish the blaze causes the insulation and wood beams to become saturated. Firefighters have been known to fall through the roof into the attic or through the attic into the floor(s) below.

In addition, not all attics have flooring. If firefighters enter the attic, they must be careful not to step outside the flooring area since they risk falling through the ceiling.

The construction of the attic is another area that presents difficulties to firefighters. Older and newer homes are constructed using different techniques. Older homes tend to have roofs that are framed with larger sized lumber, 2 by 6 inches. These attics usually provide a continuous attic space with a peak as high as 8 feet. Conventional attics are not generally compartmentalized like many new home attics. Newer home attics typically employ a truss-framed construction that involves smaller wood boards placed in “A” (or triangular) shapes throughout the attic from the ceiling to the floor. This construction can be difficult for a firefighter to navigate. In addition, wood members in truss-framed construction can conceal fires and make extinguishing the fire more difficult. In large new homes and multifamily dwellings, many attics are constructed with fire stops, which can be as substantial as 2-hour, fire-resistance rated walls. These help limit the spread of the fire from the attic to surrounding areas.

Michael Heath is president of the St. John Professional Firefighters Association.