Residential fires killed 14 Alaskans in 2025, governor's proclamation says

Residential fires killed 14 Alaskans and injured 32 others in 2025. The same fires injured 28 firefighters and caused about $45.2 million in property loss. The figures come from a proclamation Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed Thursday naming October Fire Prevention Month.

The state counted 751 residential structure fires last year, down from 801 in 2024, according to the Alaska 2024 annual fire report. Those 801 home fires killed 25 civilians, injured 31 civilians and 30 firefighters, and caused about $43.6 million in loss. Across all 1,218 structure fires that year, 27 civilians died. Dunleavy's 2025 proclamation gave the same 25 home fire deaths for 2024 but put residential fires at 1,354 and losses at about $91.3 million. His 2024 Fire Prevention Month proclamation listed 19 civilian deaths and about $47 million in losses for 2023.

Fifty-three percent of last year's home fire deaths came in properties with no smoke alarms installed. The proclamation names unattended cooking, unsafe heating and other preventable, human-caused acts as the three most common causes. It advises Alaskans to keep heating equipment at least three feet from combustible materials and to have heating equipment cleaned and inspected annually by a qualified professional. The Division of Fire and Life Safety separately advises installing smoke alarms on every level of a home and inside and outside sleeping areas, testing them monthly, and replacing them every 10 years.