COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – Branch County has been able to avoid any residential fire fatalities so far this year, but newly released data says in 2016, Michigan has some of the worst numbers for fire deaths in the nation. The U.S. Fire Administration says Michigan tied with Alabama with 19 dead between January 1 and February 1, 2016.
The last residential fire death in Branch County was last March when a 3-year old girl was killed in a blaze that gutted a farmhouse in Butler Township.
Michael McLeieer with the fire education group ESCAPE says fatality rates are climbing. In West Michigan, though, he says there was a 40% drop in January, but statewide, the numbers add up to make us one of the deadliest in the U.S.
McLeieer says it’s been a trend over the past 5 years with Michigan’s fire fatalities going up with 2015 seeing the deaths peak into the triple digits for the first time in decades. He is blaming a lack of cooperation between firefighting agencies and the state on the increase and is urging better partnership on a statewide anti-fire campaign.
