"There were fewer fire-related deaths last year than ever before — 34 in total," Tuuli Taavet, an expert from the Rescue Board's prevention department, told ERR. According to her, there were 35 fire fatalities in 2023 and 48 in 2022.

Taavet believes that the decrease in fire incidents and casualties may be attributed to overall prevention efforts and the increasing use of smoke detectors.

"If we look at the time when fire prevention was either nonexistent or not carried out systematically, and when smoke detectors were not yet mandatory in Estonia, the number of fire-related deaths was close to 200 per year," she explained.

Today, most residential buildings are equipped with smoke detectors.

"For example, just a year ago, 25 percent of people did not have a smoke detector at home. Today, that percentage has decreased to 22. Although the reduction has not been dramatic, it has been consistent over the years," Taavet said.

She also noted that the number of residential building fires has been steadily declining.

"A couple of years ago, we had around 480 residential building fires in Estonia. Last year, that number dropped to 420. So, while the decline is gradual, the trend is clearly downward," she acknowledged.

Taavet also highlighted that there were fewer fire incidents during this past winter compared to the 2023-2024 winter season. She suggested that the reason might be the warmer-than-average winter, which reduced the need for heating.

"There were significantly fewer heating system-related building fires in the 2024-2025 heating season — just 37 in total. In comparison, there were 61 such fires in the 2023-2024 season and 54 in the year before that," Taavet said.

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