Thirty-seven people died last year in fires in Minnesota. State Fire Marshal Bruce West says victims age 50 or older accounted for nearly 60-percent of people killed:
“We need to look at that age group and say what can we do? How can we reach out to the fire departments in Minnesota — to reach out to that age group in their community to lower the fire fatality rates.”
Careless smoking was the lead cause of fires and 30-percent of homes where people died, did not have a working smoke detector.
