Surgical Fire Data

When ECRI Institute published its Clinical Guide to Surgical Fire Prevention in 2009, we noted that, on average, we'd receive one or two reports of surgical fires each week. 1In recent years, however, we have been hearing about these fires less and less.

By no means has the hazard been eliminated—surgical fires do still occur. But the decreasing number of reports that we receive is an encouraging sign. We suspect the following factors may, at least...