The February 2003 Station Nightclub Fire in West Warwick, R.I., which killed 100 people, galvanized fire marshals and inspectors to revisit nightclubs and to enforce — if not beef up — their fire codes.

According to a recent report by the U.S. Fire Administration, there's reason to keep the pressure on. A USFA Topical Fire Research Report published in June reported that although nightclub fires are few in number compared to structure fires overall, maximum or overcapacity crowds make for high casualties.

The study was based on National Fire Incident Report System data collected on fires in 2000. There were 1,500 nightclub fires reported that year, constituting only 0.3% of all structure fires reported to NFIRS. Property damage from nightclub fires totaled $46 million (about 5%) of the $8.5 billion in property damage from all structure fires.

According to National Fire Data Center statistician James Heeschen, the report did not include an estimate for the number of fatalities caused by nightclub or bar fires because there are so few fires of that type that normally only a few fatalities are reported each year. There were less than three bar/nightclub fatalities reported to NFIRS in 2001. Heeschen said NFIRS data collected on nightclub fires in 2001 reported a total of about 1,300 fires and $39 million in damages. NFIRS data on nightclub fires in 2002 and 2003 was incomplete.

For the complete report (“Nightclub Fires in 2000”) in Adobe Acrobat format, visit www.usfa.fema.gov/download.jsp?url=/downloads/pdf/tfrs/v3i7.pdf