Fire and Burn Injury

Every year in Canada, approximately 1,300 fires are started by children playing with lighters and matches. These fires result in an average of 20 deaths, 150 burn injuries and $14 million in property damage. Store matches and lighters out of sight and out of reach of children, in a locked cabinet.
Source: Product Safety Bureau, Health Protection Branch, Health Canada

Scalds tend to be the most commonly treated type of burn injury. According to the CHIRPP* database, 1999, spilled hot beverages accounted for 35% of scalds and 28% were due to hot food. Children less than 5 years of age suffered 72% of hot beverage scalds. Older children, adolescents and adults sustained a greater proportion, 50%, of scalds due to hot food than to hot beverages. Scalds related to cooking made up 16% of all scalds and were most often caused by pots of boiling water spilling on stove tops, or spilling in transit between the stove and the sink. Twenty-nine children less than 5 years old were scalded when they pulled either a pot or a kettle or boiling water onto themselves from a counter or stove top.
Source: CHIRPP News, Issue 21 – September 2002

Children’s skin is thinner than that of adults and therefore burns at lower temperatures and more deeply. For example, a child exposed to hot tap water at 60ºC (140ºF) for 3 seconds will sustain a third-degree burn, an injury often requiring hospitalization and skin grafts. According to the CHIRPP* database, 1999, hot tap water was responsible for 7% of scalds treated in Canadian hospitals, and children less than 5 years sustained three-quarters of hot tap water scalds.
Source: CHIRPP News, Issue 21 – September 2002

Each year an estimated 9,000 children in Canada visit hospital emergency rooms for burns and almost half of these (an estimated 4,300 children) have suffered scalds from hot liquids. Of the 1,000 Canadian children who are hospitalized each year for severe scalds and burns, approximately 50% of these children are hospitalized for scalds alone and 28% are hospitalized for fire-related burns
Source: Safe Kids Canada, May 2001

According to the CHIRPP* database, May 1998, (representing 16 hospitals across Canada, mostly in urban centres), “Injuries associated with fireworks were sustained most frequently by 10-14 year olds (42.3%). Of all injuries related to fireworks, 77.1% were to males”.
*CHIRPP (The Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program) is a surveillance database collecting information on circumstance and outcome of injuries treated in the emergency departments of all 10 pediatric hospitals and 6 general hospitals across Canada.