A nationwide survey conducted by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers revealed that 70% of Americans feel safer from fire at home than in a commercial high-rise building and another 24% feel no difference in their safety.

In 2009, there were 356,200 residential fires resulting in 2,480 deaths and 12,600 injuries. In the same year, there were 89,200 fires in non-residential buildings resulting in 90 deaths and 1,500 injuries. High-rise building fires make up a small fraction of these non-residential building fires loses.

With respect to fire, high-rise buildings have unique risks. For example, fire department ladders cannot reach the upper floors of a high-rise building and it takes more time for people to evacuate a high-rise building during an emergency.

Because of these unique risks, fire protection engineers analyze how high-rise buildings are used, how fires start, how fires grow, and how fire and smoke affect people. They use this information to design systems that control fires, alert people to danger and provide means for escape that make high-rise buildings safer from fire.

The results of the 2011 survey are similar to the results from a 2007 survey, which indicated 65% of Americans felt safer at home and another 24% felt no difference.

The SPFE survey was conducted online in January among 1,000 adults. Respondents for this survey were selected via a systematic random sample from among those who have agreed to participate in Synovate Panel surveys. The Synovate online panel is composed of over 840,000 adults who have been recruited to regularly participate in Synovate’s online surveys. Data were weighted by age, race/ethnicity, sex, and education, to reflect population proportions.

The complete survey is available here.