Home Electrical Fires Still Kill About 500 Americans a Year, Report Finds
Home electrical fires remain a stubbornly persistent hazard in the United States, according to a 2026 residential construction industry report from Buildermuse, which cites roughly 500 American deaths and $1.3 billion in property damage from electrical fires annually — a toll the report says stays elevated in part because code adoption, inspector training, and contractor practices frequently lag two or more code cycles behind the current NEC edition.
The report frames GFCI and AFCI protection as two of the primary tools code has developed to address different pieces of this hazard: GFCI protection targets shock risk from ground faults, while AFCI (arc-fault circuit interrupter) protection targets the arcing faults in damaged wiring that are a leading cause of electrical fires. Neither device performs the other's job, which is part of why newer code cycles increasingly require both types of protection together in the same locations.
The report also flags a related renovation-market risk: with the U.S. remodeling market valued at roughly $427 billion, a large volume of older housing stock is undergoing electrical work every year, and homes built before 1990 frequently have zero GFCI protection in locations like laundry rooms or utility-sink areas that current code now covers. Permitted renovation work in a jurisdiction on the newer code will typically flag those gaps for correction even if they aren't the primary scope of the project.
Homeowners in older housing stock who want to understand their own gap in coverage can walk through common protected locations using our guide on how many GFCI outlets a house typically needs, or get a same-visit cost estimate for closing several gaps at once with the TripTrace tool.