Key facts
- In 2023, an estimated 163 000 people died worldwide from exposure to fire, heat and hot substances, according to WHO’s Global Health Estimates (GHE). This cause category does not include every kind of burn injury.
- Non-fatal burns can cause pain, prolonged treatment, scarring, disability, psychological distress and social or economic consequences.
- Many burns occur in homes and workplaces, and children are particularly at risk of scalds.
- Burns are preventable through safer products and environments, effective policy and timely first aid and care.
Overview
A burn is an injury to the skin or other tissue caused by heat or by exposure to electricity, chemicals, friction, radiation or radioactivity. Thermal burns may result from hot liquids (scalds), hot objects, flames or other sources of heat. A person may also be injured by inhaling smoke or hot gases.
The WHO GHE category “fire, heat and hot substances” (cause 1560; ICD-10 X00–X19) is a specific category for estimating mortality. It is narrower than the clinical definition of all burns and must not be described as a complete count of chemical, electrical or radiation burns.
The problem
WHO estimates that around 163 000 deaths in 2023 were attributable to fire, heat and hot substances. Of these, approximately two thirds occurred in the WHO African and South-East Asia Regions.
Severe burns can require lengthy hospital stays, repeated surgery and rehabilitation. Survivors may experience lasting physical disability, scarring, pain, limitations in activity, loss of income and psychosocial effects. Access to timely, high-quality burn care and rehabilitation can reduce avoidable deaths and disability.
Mortality estimates do not measure the full scale of burns. Hospital admissions and community-based injury surveys measure different aspects of burn occurrence and are not directly interchangeable with mortality estimates. Comparisons across countries should distinguish numbers of deaths from age-standardized death rates.
Regional and country patterns
In 2023, the WHO African Region had approximately 52 100 deaths from fire, heat and hot substances, and the South-East Asia Region approximately 56 300. Together, these regions accounted for about 66% of the worldwide total. These are death counts, not age-standardized mortality rates.
Patterns vary across countries and settings. In communities where households cook or heat with open fires, unstable stoves or hazardous fuels, women and children may experience substantial domestic exposure. Elsewhere, major hazards include house fires, scalds from hot water and liquids, electrical injury and industrial exposures. Country-specific comparisons should use the 2023 GHE estimates, with rates age-standardized where comparisons of risk are intended.
Economic impact
Burns can impose substantial costs on health services and households through emergency treatment, surgery, wound care, rehabilitation and long-term support. Indirect costs include lost income, interrupted schooling and the time and resources committed by families to care. The financial burden depends on injury severity, local prices and access to care; a single historic international per-patient cost is not a useful current global estimate.
Who is at risk?
Age and sex
Children can be exposed to hot liquids, cooking equipment and flames, while older people may face risks associated with impaired mobility, sensation or cognition. The 2023 GHE estimated about 35 600 deaths from fire, heat and hot substances among children younger than 15 years (22% of the global total). Globally, approximately 84 600 deaths occurred among females and 78 800 among males; in the WHO South-East Asia Region, females accounted for about 70% of deaths. These figures describe mortality from the specified GHE cause, not the incidence of all clinical burns.
Social and environmental factors
Factors that can increase the risk of burns include poverty and overcrowded housing; open cooking fires and unstable stoves; hazardous fuels or unsafe gas and electrical installations; lack of fire protection; work involving flames, electricity, chemicals or hot materials; and limited access to first aid and medical care. Intentional burns related to violence or self-harm require appropriate prevention and protection responses.
Where do burns occur?
The home and workplace are important settings for prevention. In homes, hazards include hot drinks and cooking liquids, unguarded stoves, open fires, unsafe heating equipment and excessively hot tap water. In workplaces, hazards may include heat, flames, chemicals, electricity and inadequate safety procedures or protective equipment.
Prevention
Effective burn prevention combines safer environments and products, regulation and enforcement, education and access to care. Interventions should be tailored to the main hazards in the population and assessed against reductions in injuries, not just improvements in awareness. A 2024 systematic review of childhood burn-prevention programmes found reductions in burn rates in some studies, especially programmes combining active and passive measures and targeting populations at greater risk, but judged the evidence limited and vulnerable to bias (1).
A multisectoral approach, consistent with WHO’s plan for burn prevention and care, should:
- assess local burden, risk factors and gaps in the quality of data;
- develop and enforce fire, building, housing and workplace safety standards;
- support safer cooking, heating, electricity and fuel systems;
- promote tested home safety measures, including working smoke alarms, safer water temperatures and safeguards for young children;
- strengthen burn first aid, emergency care, referral systems and rehabilitation; and
- evaluate programmes and scale up those shown to reduce burn injuries or their severity.
First aid
What to do
- Ensure your own safety, stop exposure to the source of heat and extinguish flames safely.
- Cool a thermal burn promptly with cool running water; approximately 20 minutes is commonly advised for smaller burns where this can be done safely. Keep the rest of the person warm and avoid delaying urgent treatment (2,3).
- Remove rings, watches and other tight items early; remove clothing that is not stuck to the wound.
- Cover the burn with a clean, non-adherent dressing or cloth and seek urgent medical care for deep, large, electrical or chemical burns, burns of the face, hands, feet or genitals, or possible inhalation injury.
- For chemical burns, avoid direct contact with the substance, remove contaminated clothing safely, brush off dry chemicals when appropriate and irrigate with abundant water unless specific chemical safety guidance advises otherwise.
What not to do
- Do not apply ice, oils, butter, toothpaste, traditional pastes or other household substances to a burn.
- Do not pull off clothing or other material stuck to the wound, or deliberately break blisters.
- Avoid hypothermia, especially in infants, older people and people with large burns; cooling the entire person is not the aim.
The best duration of cooling remains subject to uncertainty in comparative evidence, although immediate running-water cooling is widely recommended. First-aid advice should be adapted to the size of the burn and the risk of hypothermia (2,3).
WHO response
WHO supports evidence-informed burn prevention, strengthening of emergency and essential surgical care, rehabilitation, and improved collection and use of injury data, including through a global burn registry. The WHO plan for burn prevention and care describes complementary actions on advocacy, surveillance, policy, research, programme delivery, care and capacity strengthening.
WHO’s 2024 Standards and recommendations for burns care in mass casualty incidents provides guidance on emergency preparedness, specialist burn teams and surge capacities when large numbers of burn casualties could overwhelm routine health services.
References
1. van Balen NIM et al. Effectiveness of prevention programmes on the rate of burn injuries in children: a systematic review. Inj Prev. 2024;30:68–74. https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2022-044827
2. Griffin B et al. The effect of 20 minutes of cool running water first aid within three hours of thermal burn injury on patient outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Australas Emerg Care. 2022;25:367–376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.auec.2022.05.004
3. International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation. 2025 International Consensus on First Aid Science with Treatment Recommendations: thermal burns section. https://www.ilcor.org/uploads/FA-2025-COSTR-Full-Chapter.pdf