Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

A recent fire in a hotel which occurred outside normal viewing hours but was attributed to a television set has prompted a study of the statistics of television fires. Fires in television sets more than doubled in frequency in the period 1960-1968. There were an estimated 1244 incidents in 1968 (based on a one-in-four sample of fire reports); only 56 of these occurred between 01.00 and 10.59. Of those outside normal viewing hours, at least two-thirds occurred in sets that were said to have been left plugged in. In the one-in-four sample of reports ten rescues and nine non-fatal casualties were noted.