This year, 48 people have already died in a house fire, six in the last quarter, a spokesman for the National Directorate General for Disaster Management (OKF) told MTI.
Daniel Mukics added that this year, 422 people were saved and 413 were injured, most of them due to smoke poisoning. According to the Disaster Management Aggregate, there were fewer house fires in the third quarter of the year than in the first and second. In the first nine months of the year, flames erupted in 5,176 homes. Almost 70,000 square meters of homes burned down, an area the size of one of the largest plazas in Budapest, the spokesman noted.
Most apartment fires were in Pest county and Budapest, but firefighters were often called in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Hajdú-Bihar, Bács-Kiskun, as well as in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg and Somogy counties, he added.
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Dániel Mukics also mentioned that a fire investigation was launched after 237 apartment fires this year. Based on the results, the most common use of an open flame, smoking, electrical failure, or heating system failures led to a fire. 689 apartment fires occurred in the chimney, indicating that not everyone makes use of the possibility of free chimney sweeping.
The spokesman also drew attention to the fact that only seven of the 5,176 homes affected by the fire had smoke detectors. And where it was, there was not even an injury, and the fire was much smaller, he wrote.
Firefighters were alerted 697 times by the end of September this year due to carbon monoxide. In doing so, 161 suffered some degree of poisoning and 14 lost their lives due to the toxic gas, the statement reads.
MTI
