Analyzing the national fire incident reporting system to identify carbon monoxide incidents in the U.S. lodging industry

Carbon Monoxide (CO) poisonings in the U.S. lodging industry have become a regular occurrence, however there is no current mandatory national reporting, tracking, or surveillance mechanism for CO incidents in the U.S. lodging industry. As such, the problem is largely invisible. The objective of this study was to utilize the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) data to better understand the public health risk from Carbon Monoxide (CO) incidents in the U.S. lodging industry. The NFIRS datasets for years 1999 through 2018 were assessed to identify CO incidents occurring at U.S. hotels and motels. The results of the analysis identified 3405 incidents. Incidents were strongly correlated with increased fire department participation in NFIRS (R = 0.82). The number and frequency of CO incidents in the U.S. lodging industry are underreported. Previous efforts relying on news media identified only 10% of the incidents reported in the NFIRS data. This indicates a greater public health risk associated with CO exposure in the U.S. lodging industry than previously realized.