Press Release  Fire Prevention Week Kicks Off with Focus on Cooking Safety

STOW — Massachusetts has joined the nation in observing Fire Prevention Week from Oct. 8-14, and this year’s theme focuses on the Commonwealth’s leading cause of fires and fire injuries: unsafe cooking.

In a proclamation declaring Fire Prevention Week, Governor Maura Healey noted that unsafe cooking practices contribute to about 70% of Massachusetts’ residential fires annually and have caused 47,543 fires and seven deaths statewide during the past five years.

Fire Prevention Week is observed each year during the week of Oct. 9 in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire, which began on October 8, 1871. This horrific conflagration killed more than 250 people, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed more than 17,400 structures, and burned more than 2,000 acres of land.

The National Fire Protection Association has sponsored the public observance of Fire Prevention Week since 1922. In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed it a national observance, making it the nation’s longest-running public health observance. During Fire Prevention Week, fire service leaders and many others provide lifesaving public education in an effort to drastically decrease fires and the associated deaths, injuries, and property loss.

The Department of Fire Services promotes fire safety all year long and will emphasize cooking fire safety through the week on its social media pages. For cooking fire safety tips you can use anytime, visit the DFS Cooking Fire & Burn Safety web page.

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