The Influence of COVID-19 Stay at Home Measures on Fire Statistics Sampled from New York City, London, San Francisco, and Tokyo

The COVID-19 pandemic kept people at home, in either a voluntary or non-voluntary capacity, in many countries. These suggested countermeasures were prominent in the so-called initial waves of the pandemic, especially from March 2020 to May 2020. As people stayed home, in many cases restaurants were closed. As a result, people spent more time in their kitchen, not only to cook meals but also as a personal hobby. It is well known that cooking fires are a main cause of fires in residential homes. In this study, the change in the number of cooking fires in residential homes as well as the number of residential fires during these COVID-19 countermeasure periods were examined in four cities: New York City (USA), San Francisco (USA), Tokyo (Japan), and London (UK). The time period examined was from January to June in 2020 in order to grasp overall effects of stay-at-home measures on fire incidents. The number of cooking fires and residential fires increased in Tokyo and San Francisco, while the number of cooking fires in New York City (no data was obtained for cooking fires in London.) and the number of residential fires in New York City and London remained similar to previous years.