Little General Store Propane Explosion - US Chemical Safety and ...

Little General Store September 2008
3.0 Propane Incident Frequency
3.1 United States Hazardous Materials Incidents 2001 – 2006
The National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is the United States Fire Administration’s database
of fire and emergency incidents. The CSB reviewed the NFIRS database for the years 2001 to 2006 to
determine the frequency with which United States fire departments responded to propane incidents.
In this six-year period, the NFIRS database includes 36,744 hazardous materials responses in the United
States. 19 Of these responses, 35.3 percent were responses to releases of gasoline, natural gas, or propane.
Incidents involving propane occur nearly once per day.
Table 1. U.S. hazardous materials incidents 2001-2006.
Natural
Total
hazardous
materials
Gasoline Gas Propane incidents
2001 658 468 157 4154
2002 817 627 210 4661
2003 1084 830 263 5904
2004 1149 863 234 6307
2005 1423 1151 301 8301
2006 1406 997 317 7417
Total 6537 4936 1482 36,744
19 As not all states require participation in NFIRS data collection, the total number of hazardous materials responses
may not be exhaustive; however, the CSB and the U.S. Fire Administration consider the types of responses
representative of the United States as a whole.
20