State officials are sounding the alarm about the relentless increase in the number of Minnesotans dying from fires.
Minnesota saw 70 fire-related fatalities in 2022, according to newly released data from the State Fire Marshal Division. That's the most since 1995, when 86 lives were lost.
Not only does last year's total mark a fourth consecutive annual rise from a near-record low of 37 in 2018, this year's tally signals more of the same. As of June 15, fire deaths through in 2023 stood at 21, compared with 17 at that time last year, according to state statistics.
Two deaths from residential fires in recent weeks in Minneapolis have pushed the state's total this year unofficially to at least 23.
"The majority of these deaths are not the result of social media challenges gone wrong that we sometimes hear about," Interim State Fire Marshal Amanda Swenson said Thursday during a virtual news conference, "but behaviors and actions that sometimes we take multiple times in our lifetime and then tragically something goes wrong."
The decisions and actions leading to fire-related deaths last year varied widely. Among them:
- Faulty installation of a natural gas water heater by a Hopkins homeowner led to an explosion and fire in July that killed him and his wife in the house he built more than a half-century go.
- Many deaths involved fires ignited by traffic crashes, including one in August from a two-vehicle collision at E. 38th Street and S. Portland Avenue in Minneapolis.
Twenty-nine fire deaths were linked to alcohol or drugs — prescription and illegal.
"While I am certainly not an expert on substance abuse or treatment, we do see a link between fatal fires and the use of drugs and alcohol," Swenson said in a follow-up interview Friday.