Statisticians with the National Fire Data Center at the U.S. Fire Administration say the most recent data collected by the National Fire Incident Reporting System reflects a change in the leading cause of dormitory and fraternity/sorority house fires.

In the past, incendiary/suspicious fires were reported as the leading cause, but the 2001 and 2002 data put cooking fires ahead of supspicious fires by a wide margin: 63% to 11.2% in 2001, and 73.2% to 7.9% in 2002.

National Fire Data Center statisticians have spent some time investigating why the data has changed and no definite answer has emerged, they say. "It is possible that more departments are reporting such fires, and there also has been a change as to how cooking fires are reported in NFIRS 5.0," said USFA Spokeman Tom Olshanski. "The NFIRS 5.0 version has made it easier to define cooking fires which may explain the change in the leading cause of dormitory and fraternity and sorority house fires." In 2002, 55% of the dormitory fires reported to NFIRS were version 5.0 cases coded as cooking fires confined to a container.

Dorms also may have integrated smoke alarm systems that automatically trigger a response by the fire department, so even an extinguished cooking fire might trigger more of these incidents being reported.