0.7
per 100,000 people, 2022
Low trust, 59 of 100 The sources disagree: their figures run from 0.46 to 0.7.
- WHO
- CTIF
Recorded change in how a source reports; hover or focus the ring for details.
Show the data as a table
| Year | WHO Mortality Database, smoke, fire and flames | CTIF World Fire Statistics, fire deaths |
|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 1.33 | – |
| 1981 | 1.83 | – |
| 1982 | 1.58 | – |
| 1983 | 1.22 | – |
| 1984 | 1.16 | – |
| 1985 | 1.2 | – |
| 1986 | 0.95 | – |
| 1987 | 1.18 | – |
| 1988 | 1.13 | – |
| 1989 | 0.95 | – |
| 1990 | 0.99 | – |
| 1991 | 1.09 | – |
| 1992 | 1.03 | – |
| 1993 | 0.8 | 1.36 |
| 1994 | 1.15 | – |
| 1995 | 1.09 | – |
| 1996 | 1.04 | – |
| 1997 | 1.04 | – |
| 1998 | 0.77 | – |
| 1999 | 0.81 | – |
| 2000 | 0.94 | – |
| 2001 | 0.95 | – |
| 2002 | 0.83 | – |
| 2003 | 0.93 | – |
| 2004 | 0.94 | – |
| 2005 | 0.69 | – |
| 2006 | 0.87 | – |
| 2007 | 0.8 | – |
| 2008 | 0.88 | – |
| 2009 | 1.03 | – |
| 2010 | 0.77 | – |
| 2011 | 0.72 | – |
| 2012 | 0.78 | 0.65 |
| 2013 | 0.64 | 0.45 |
| 2014 | 0.63 | – |
| 2015 | 0.66 | – |
| 2016 | 0.58 | – |
| 2017 | 0.44 | – |
| 2018 | 0.55 | – |
| 2019 | 0.47 | – |
| 2020 | 0.65 | 0.56 |
| 2021 | 0.53 | 0.5 |
| 2022 | 0.7 | 0.46 |
| 2023 | – | 0.23 |
All countriesAll of Belgium's figuresCompare
Belgium among 146 countries
52 have a higher figure and 93 a lower one. Definitions differ between countries, and their years run from 2001 to 2024.
What this number counts
- Counts
- People who died from fire, per 100,000 people. WHO: death certificates coded to accidental exposure to smoke, fire and flames. CTIF: fire deaths counted by fire services.
- Where
- Belgium
- When
- 2022 (one year, not an average)
Where the number comes from (2 sources)
| Source | Figure and year | Definition | Quality | Counts for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
WHO Mortality Database, smoke, fire and flamesWorld Health Organization (WHO) · Death and health registersRetrieved 2026-10-25 | 0.72022 | Registered deaths whose underlying cause is ICD-10 X00-X09 (exposure to smoke, fire and flames), all ages and both sexes, divided by the population in WHO's population file for the same year.Crude rate, not age-standardised. WHO list used: 104. Lists 101, 103, 104 and 10M qualify for ICD-10, 09A, 09B and 09N for ICD-9, 08A for ICD-8; the others have no fire-only item. These codes are accidents: arson (X97), self-harm (X76), undetermined intent (Y26) and transport accidents are outside them. National rows only. Both sources are shown for the latest year they share. The yearly series also covers years before this country's WHO data switched to ICD-10; those years count ICD-9 Basic Tabulation List item B51 (E890-E899, accidents caused by fire and flames) up to 1997. Each switch is listed under reporting changes. Directness 0.5: this measures accidental fire deaths on death certificates, not every death from a fire. Raw files: morticd10_part1-6.zip (81 deaths) and mort_pop.zip. The same file records 25 deaths for this year coded X76, X97 or Y26 (self-harm, assault or undetermined intent by smoke, fire and flames); these are not in the figure. WHO publishes the data as the country sent them and does not adjust for incomplete registration. | 4 of 5 checks
| 67% |
CTIF World Fire Statistics, fire deathsCTIF Center for Fire Statistics · Administrative recordsRetrieved 2026-11-02 | 0.462022 | Fire deaths as reported by the country's fire services and collected by CTIF's Center for Fire Statistics, divided by the population CTIF prints in the same table.CTIF publishes no common definition of a fire death: its reports warn that each country has its own reporting rules and that they change. Both sources are shown for the latest year they share. Series years come from the newest report that has a value for that year; the denominator is that report's population column, which stays the same for all five years of a table. Directness 0.5: fire deaths as each country's fire services define them. Table: CTIF Report 31, Table 1.9, Trends in fire deaths in the countries of the World in 2020-2024, PDF page 36 (file in raw/fire-deaths-by-country/ctif/): 54 deaths, population 11697 thousand, row label "Belgium". | 2 of 5 checks
| 33% |
- WHO67%
- CTIF33%
How the trust score was worked out
- Quality26.7 / 40
How well the sources are made
- Agreement9.4 / 30
How close the sources are to each other
- Independence16 / 20
How many separate ways the number was measured
- Freshness7 / 10
How recent the newest data is
Who reports it, and since when
No source of these kinds: independent count.
- WHO, 1998: WHO's data for this country switch from ICD-9 to ICD-10 in 1998: fire deaths are ICD-10 X00-X09 (exposure to smoke, fire and flames) from 1998, and ICD-9 Basic Tabulation List item B51 (E890-E899, accidents caused by fire and flames) up to 1997. source
- CTIF, 2003: CTIF Report 10, which supplies the years to 2002 here, describes its table as fire deaths of both civilians and firefighters. Later reports describe civilian fire deaths (Report 26, for example). The reports do not state when this changed. source
- CTIF: no figure here for 24 years between 1993 and 2023
figure no figure here, inside its range no later figure recorded change
Why the numbers differ
- Two kinds of record. WHO counts death certificates by underlying cause, coded by the national authority. CTIF counts the deaths that fire services record and report. A person can be in one record and not in the other. CTIF warns that each country has its own reporting rules and that they change.
- Which fires count on a death certificate. ICD-10 X00-X09 includes forest fires and fire caused by lightning. It excludes arson (X97), fires following an explosion (W35-W40) and transport accidents (V01-V99), so someone who dies in a burning car after a crash is coded to the crash. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Which fires count in a fire service record. CTIF lists vehicle fires as a type of fire death: 510 of the 3,840 deaths in its table of fire types for the USA in 2024 (Report 31, Table 1.5, Distribution of fire deaths by type of fires in the countries of the World in 2024, PDF page 30). CTIF Report 10 (2005) also says Russia did not then record grass and rubbish fires, while the USA counted all fire incidents. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Intent. X00-X09 are accidents. Deaths coded to self-harm (X76), assault (X97) or undetermined intent (Y26) by smoke, fire and flames are left out of the WHO line, and the fire service count has no such split. For the 69 countries with 20 or more deaths and detailed codes, those deaths are a median 13.3% of all four groups together, highest in Cuba 65.8%, Argentina 55.9%, Uruguay 48.1%. Each line's notes give the count. (source, retrieved 2026-10-25)
- Deaths after the fire. A death later on from an old injury is coded to the sequelae group (Y86 for accidents), outside X00-X09. The CTIF reports read for this page state no time limit for counting a death as a fire death, so that depends on each country's rules. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Smoke inhalation. ICD-10 puts smoke inhalation without further detail in X09, and carbon monoxide from smoke and fumes of a fire in X00-X09 (X47, accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, excludes it). A certificate that names only carbon monoxide and not a fire would fall in X47 and out of this count. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- CTIF's own comparison. CTIF Report 10 (2005, PDF pages 36-37) compared the two for 11 countries in 1996-2000 and found WHO figures higher by 9-10% on average, and differences in both directions in the former USSR republics. It says some accidents WHO counts are not fires, and its authors prefer fire service data; WHO's figures rest on medically certified deaths under one classification. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Largest gaps in the same year among the 60 countries with both, per 100,000 people: Uruguay (WHO 0.83, CTIF 4.49 in 2023), Russian Federation (WHO 2.23, CTIF 5.83 in 2019), Ukraine (WHO 2.99, CTIF 5.10 in 2019). (source, retrieved 2026-10-25)
- Great Britain. CTIF labels its row Great Britain, and the reports opened for this page do not say whether Northern Ireland is included. It is shown on the United Kingdom row, but it is not counted in the score or in the same-year comparison.
- Under-reporting. Where death registration is incomplete the WHO rate is too low, and each line says so. A country whose fire services cover only part of its territory will have a low CTIF rate.
Common mistakes
- Ranking countries on the CTIF rates as if they used one definition. CTIF says the rules differ by country and change over time. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Comparing these rates with WHO Global Health Estimates for "fire, heat and hot substances". That group covers X00-X19, so it adds burns from heat and hot substances, and it is modelled. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Reading a step in a series as a change in fires. ICD revisions and changes in what a country reports both move the line; each line lists the ones known under reporting changes.
- Using the WHO and CTIF years as if the same people were counted twice over. They are two records of overlapping but different groups of deaths, and they should not be added.
Download, cite and report an error
From the table How many people die in fires in each country? Updated 2026-11-02.
Download every value in this table (CSV)
Cite as: RealStats, “Fire death rate in Belgium”, updated 2026-11-02, with the original sources listed on the page.