Thermal causes

Thermal causes of injury include exposure to smoke, fire and flames as well as contact with hot substances and heat sources, such as hot food and drinks, and household appliances. Burns from bushfires also fall in this category.

Thermal injuries were the tenth ranked cause of injury hospitalisations in 2023–24 and the tenth ranked cause of injury deaths in 2022–23.

Thermal injuries resulted in:

Injuries causing hospitalisation or death were most likely among:

Type of thermal cause

In 2023–24, contact with hot drinks, food, fats and cooking oils, contact with other hot fluids and exposure to controlled fire, not in building or structure were the types of thermal causes most often associated with injury hospitalisations (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Number and age-standardised rate of injury hospitalisations, by type of thermal cause, Australia, 2023–24

Note: Age-standardised rates per 100,000 population.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

For more detail, see Supplementary data tables.

In 2022–23, most thermal cause injury deaths were from exposure to uncontrolled fire in building or structure (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Number and age-standardised rate of injury deaths by type of thermal cause, Australia, 2022–23

Notes:

1. Age-standardised rates per 100,000 population.
2. ASRs where the numerator is less than 20 are not shown due to data volatility.
3. There were 29 deaths with unknown type of thermal cause, these were excluded in the ranking.

Sources: AIHW National Mortality Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

Trends over time

Over the past decade, the rate of thermal injury hospitalisations has decreased, with age-standardised rates ranging from 24.7 in 2014–15 to 20.7 per 100,000 in 2023–24 (Figure 3). The number of hospitalisations decreased from 5,827 to 5,403 in the same period. The hospitalisation rate in 2023–24 was 9.4% lower than the previous 5-year average rate of 22.9 per 100,000 population.

Figure 3: Number and age-standardised rate of thermal injury hospitalisations by financial year, Australia

Notes:

1. Bars are number of hospitalisations, and the line graph represents age-standardised rates (per 100,000 population).
2. Break in series between 2016–2017 and 2017–18. See technical notes for detail.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

The number of thermal injury deaths has generally remained stable over time, with a peak of 135 deaths in 2019–20. Of the 135 deaths, 34 were related to exposure to uncontrolled fire, not in a building or structure, 33 of these can be attributed to the 2019–20 bushfire season (Parliament of Australia 2020) (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Number and age-standardised rate of thermal injury deaths, by financial year, Australia

Note: Bars are number of deaths, and the line graph represents age-standardised rates (per 100,000 population)

Sources: AIHW National Mortality Database and ABS National, state and territory population.

Seasonality

Hospital admissions due to thermal injuries generally increase in winter (Figure 5). In 2023–24, the highest numbers of hospitalisations were during September (514) and May (495) and both were higher than the previous 5-year average. The winter months, July and August, saw more hospitalisation than summer months, however they were lower than the 5-year average.

In 2022–23, the number of deaths due to thermal causes peaked in July (20), which was above the 5-year average. October (3) had the lowest number of deaths and was also below the 5-year average.

What injuries occur?

Body part injured and type of injury

In 2023–24, the hip and lower limb was the body part most often identified as the main site of injury in thermal injury hospitalisations (4.1 per 100,000 population), followed by the wrist and hand (3.7 per 100,000) (Figure 6).

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

When looking at type of injury, burns accounted for 92.4% of all thermal injuries, followed by poisoning or toxic effect (4.8%).

Activity while injured and place of occurrence

Severity

The average number of days in hospital for thermal injuries was higher than the average for all hospitalised injuries in 2023–24, and the percentages of cases that included time in an ICU and cases that involved continuous ventilatory support were both higher. The rate of in-hospital deaths was lower (Table 2).

Notes:

1. Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) includes admissions that are transfers from one hospital to another or transfers from one admitted care type to another within the same hospital, except where care involves rehabilitation procedures.
2. All injuries includes thermal injuries in the total calculations.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

Age and sex

Rates of hospitalisation and death caused by thermal injuries were higher among males. Hospitalisations were most frequent among children while deaths were most frequently among older people (Figure 7).

For thermal injury hospitalisations in 2023–24:

• 3,494 cases (64%) were males
• the age-standardised rate for males (26.7 per 100,000) was 1.8 times that for females (14.6 per 100,000)
• males aged 0–4 had the highest rate (97.5 per 100,000).

For thermal injury deaths in 2022–23:

• 82 deaths (70%) were males
• the age-standardised rate for males (0.6 per 100,000) was 3.0 times that for females (0.2 per 100,000)
• males aged 65+ had the highest rate (1.6 deaths per 100,000).

 Trends over the last decade show:

• decreases for both sexes
• increases since 2014–15 among children aged 0-4 years –this age group was consistently the most likely to be hospitalised due to exposure to thermal causes every year and differs from the trend for other age groups
• the 15–24-year age group showed a steady decline, from ranking as the second highest age group to be hospitalised in 2014–15, to the lowest in 2023–24.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

First Nations people

Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (First Nations people):

• there were 559 hospitalisations due to thermal injuries in 2023–24 (54.3 per 100,000)
• males were 1.6 times as likely as females to be hospitalised (66.3 and 42.1 per 100,000 population)
• hospitalisation rates were highest among children aged 0–4 (Figure 8)
• there were 5 deaths due to thermal injuries in 2022–23

Figure 8: Number and crude rate of thermal injury hospitalisations among First Nations people, by age and sex, Australia, 2023–24

Note: Bars are number of hospitalisations, and the line graph represents crude rates (per 100,000 persons). 

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

Comparison between First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians

First Nations people, when compared with non-Indigenous Australians, were 2.6 times as likely to be hospitalised due to a thermal injury in 2023–24 (adjusted for age).

Between 2017–18 and 2023–24, the age-standardised rate for thermal cause-related hospitalisations for First Nations people has decreased by an average annual rate of 1.2% compared to an average annual decrease of 2.4% for non-Indigenous Australians (Figure 9).

Figure 9: Age-standardised rates of thermal injury hospitalisations by Indigenous status and financial year, Australia

Notes:

1. Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
2. ‘Non-Indigenous people’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

The rate of thermal injury hospitalisations was highest among the 0–4 age group for both First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians (Figure 10), with rates for First Nations people in these age groups being over twice those of their non-Indigenous counterparts.

Figure 10: Thermal injury hospitalisations, by Indigenous status, by age group, Australia, 2023–24

Notes:

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. ‘Non-Indigenous Australians’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database and ABS Estimates and Projections, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables.

State and territory

The states and territories with the highest rates of thermal injury hospitalisation in 2023–24 were:

• Northern Territory (64.6 per 100,000)
• Queensland (30.3 per 100,000)
• South Australia (26.5 per 100,000) (Figure 11).

Rates of thermal injury deaths cannot be reliably calculated in most states due to low numbers. Figure 8 shows the number of deaths in each state and territory in 2022–23.

Figure 11: Age-standardised rate of thermal injury hospitalisations (2023–24) and number of injury deaths (2022–23), by state or territory of usual residence, Australia

Notes:

1. State and territory refers to the state and territory of usual residence for the individual.
2. Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.
3. Rates of injury death cannot be reliably calculated in most states due to low numbers. Therefore, Figure 11 only presents data on the number of injury deaths in each state and territory for 2022–23.

Sources: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, AIHW National Mortality Database, and ABS National, state and territory population.

For more information, please see the supplementary data tables and the geography dashboard.

Remoteness

Areas of Australia which are more remote tend to have higher rates of hospitalisation and death from injury than less remote areas.

For information on how statistics are calculated by remoteness, see the technical notes.

Socioeconomic areas

Level of socioeconomic disadvantage in Australia impacts the risk of injuries. People living in the most socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of Australia, compared to the least socioeconomically disadvantaged, were 2.5 times as likely to be hospitalised by a thermal injury in 2023–24 (Figure 13).

Data details

• Technical notes: how the data were calculated
• Data tables: download the full tables
• Glossary
  
  

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