U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for January 6: Fire Hazard

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

FIRE HAZARD

Profile America — Wednesday, January 6th. Today, when a home is damaged or destroyed by fire, there usually is no question that it was insured against such a common danger. The first fire insurance company in Colonial America was the Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire. Organized in 1734 in Charleston, South Carolina, it began receiving subscriptions in January 1735. The company was apparently bankrupted by claims after a disastrous citywide fire in 1740. The first full-time, professional firefighting company was formed in 1853 in Cincinnati. It was also the first to use steam-powered fire engines. Across the U.S., there are more than 65,000 professional firefighters and some 31,000 insurance carriers, which employ more than 1.4 million agents and staff. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: Kane's Famous First Facts, 4529
Cincinnati trailblazing/accessed 11/12/2015: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/fire/history/
Firefighters: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_14_1YR_B24121&prodType=table
Insurance companies/NAICS 5241 http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2013_00A1&prodType=table

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).

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