This represents 1.0% of injury hospitalisations and 1.0% of injury deaths.
This page summarises data on unintentional thermal injuries only. Intentional injuries and deaths are included under Assault and homicide or Self-harm and suicide.
Thermal causes of injury that led to hospitalisation
In 2020–21:
- 3 in 5 hospitalisations due to thermal causes (60%) were from contact with heat and hot substances
- 2 in 5 hospitalisations due to thermal causes (40%) were from exposure to fire, smoke and flames (Table 1).
Table 1: Thermal causes of injury that led to hospitalisation, 2020–21
Cause
|
Hospitalisations
|
%
|
Rate (per 100,000)
|
Contact with heat and hot substances (X10–19)
|
|
|
|
Contact with hot drinks, food, fats and cooking oils (X10)
|
1,056
|
18
|
4.1
|
Contact with hot fluids that are not hot drinks, food, fats and cooking oils (for example, water boiled on stove and hot tap water) (X11–12)
|
1,054
|
18
|
4.1
|
Other or unspecified (X13–19)
|
1,489
|
25
|
5.8
|
Exposure to fire, smoke and flames (X00–09)
|
|
|
|
Exposure to a controlled or uncontrolled fire (X00–03)
|
1,091
|
18
|
4.2
|
Other or unspecified (X04–09)
|
1,327
|
22
|
5.1
|
Total
|
6,017
|
100
|
23.5
|
Notes
- Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
- Percentages and rates may not equal total due to rounding.
- Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2019).
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.
For more detail, see Data tables B13–14.
In 2019–20:
- 74% of deaths due to thermal causes were from exposure to fire, smoke and flames (Table 2).
Table 2: Most common thermal causes of injury death, 2019–20
Cause
|
Deaths
|
%
|
Rate (per 100,000)
|
Exposure to a controlled or uncontrolled fire (X00–03)
|
78
|
61
|
0.3
|
Other or unspecified exposure to fire, smoke or flames (X04–09)
|
17
|
13
|
0.1
|
Contact with heat and hot substances (X10–19)
|
9
|
7
|
0.0
|
Elsewhere classified
|
24
|
19
|
0.1
|
Total
|
128
|
100
|
0.5
|
Notes
- Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
- Percentages may not equal total due to rounding.
- Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10 external cause codes (WHO 2011).
Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.
For more detail, see Data tables B19–21.
Hospitalisations due to injuries from thermal causes are higher over the colder months.
The interactive display illustrates other seasonal differences in injury hospitalisations.

Notes
1. Admission counts have been standardised into two 15-day periods per month.
2. A scale up factor has been applied to June admissions to account for cases not yet separated.
Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.
Trends over time
The age-standardised rate of hospitalisations for thermal injuries in 2020–21 was 0.9% lower than a year earlier.
Over the period from 2011–12 to 2017–18 there was an average annual decrease in hospitalisations from this cause of 1.4%. There is a break in the time series for hospitalisations between 2016–17 and 2017–18 due to a change in data collection methods (see the technical notes for details).
The average annual increase in rate of deaths from thermal injuries between 2010–11 and 2019–20 was 1.4% (Figure 2).