December Was Ohio’s Deadliest Month for Fires in 2014

A string of multiple-fatality home blazes made December Ohio’s deadliest fire month of 2014 and pushed the annual death toll to 115.

Statistics from the state fire marshal’s office show 16 people were killed by fires last month, causing an increase in the year’s death toll after three straight years of declining numbers. The state reported 103 fire deaths in 2013, after 106 in 2012.

An early morning house fire in Hamilton killed three children in southwest Ohio on Dec. 12. Two adults were killed in a Dec. 24 fire in Monroe County in eastern Ohio. On Dec. 26, a woman and her three grandsons died in a fire in her home near Washington Court House in southwest Ohio.