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 both injury hospitalisations in 2024–25 and deaths in 2023–24.

Thermal injuries resulted in:

Injuries causing hospitalisation or death were most common for:

Type of thermal cause

In 2024–25, injuries from contact with hot drinks, food, fats and cooking oils, contact with other hot fluids and contact with other and unspecified heat and hot substances most frequently resulted in hospitalisation (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Injury hospitalisations due to thermal causes, by type of thermal cause, 2024–25

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

For more detail, see supplementary data table H18.

In 2023–24, most injury deaths from thermal causes were due to an uncontrolled fire in a building or structure (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Injury deaths due to thermal causes, by type of thermal cause, 2023–24

Note: There were 40 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 D8.

Trends over time

The number of injury hospitalisations due to thermal causes has declined over the past decade (Figure 3).

Between 2015–16 and 2024–25, the rate has decreased from 24.5 to 20.3 per 100,000 (Figure 3). The hospitalisation rate in 2024–25 was 6.8% lower than the previous 5-year average rate of 21.8 per 100,000 population.

Figure 3: Injury hospitalisations due to thermal causes, 2015–16 to 2024–25

Note: Columns represent number of hospitalisations, the line graph represents the crude rate (per 100,000 population).

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

The number of thermal injury deaths has gradually increased over time. Of the 135 deaths in 2019–20, 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: Injury deaths due to thermal causes, 2014–15 to 2023–24

Note: Columns represent number of hospitalisations, the line graph represents the crude rate (per 100,000 population).

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

Seasonality

Injury hospitalisations due to thermal causes generally increase during winter (Figure 5). However, in 2024–25, the number of hospitalisations in the winter months was below the previous 5-year average, particularly in July and August.

What injuries occur?

Body part injured and type of injury

In 2024–25, the hip and lower limb represented the most common site for thermal injury hospitalisations (4.2 per 100,000 population), followed by the wrist and hand (3.8 per 100,000) (Figure 6).

For more detail, see supplementary data table H10.

Activity while injured and place of occurrence

Severity

Injury hospitalisations for thermal causes are generally more severe than the average of all hospitalised injuries (Table 1).

In 2024–25, the average length of stay in hospital for thermal injuries was longer and a higher proportion of cases involved ICU admission or continuous ventilatory support. However, a smaller proportion died in hospital (Table 1).

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 table H14.

Age and sex

Rates of hospitalisation and death due to thermal injuries are higher among males and differ by age (Figure 7).

For thermal injury hospitalisations in 2024–25:

• 3,558 cases (64%) were males
• the rate for males (26.2 per 100,000) was 1.8 times that for females (14.5 per 100,000)
• males aged 0–4 had the highest rate (100.7 per 100,000).

For thermal injury deaths in 2023–24:

• 102 deaths (74%) were males
• the rate for males (0.8 per 100,000) was 2.7 times that for females (0.3 per 100,000)
• males aged 65 and over had the highest rate (1.9 deaths per 100,000).

Over the past decade, children aged 0-4 consistently had the highest hospitalisation rate for thermal causes, rising from 71.5 to 83.9 per 100,000 between 2015–16 and 2024–25. Rates for all other age groups gradually declined, with 15–24-year-olds recording the lowest rate in 2024–25.

For more detail, see supplementary data tables H3 and H9.

First Nations people

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

• there were 666 hospitalisations due to thermal injuries in 2024–25 (63.5 per 100,000)
• males were 1.6 times as likely as females to be hospitalised (78.4 and 48.4 per 100,000 population)
• hospitalisation rates were highest among people aged 0–4 (Figure 8)
• there were 12 deaths due to thermal injuries in 2023–24

Figure 8: Injury hospitalisations due to thermal causes among First Nations people, by age group and sex, 2024–25

Note: Columns are number of hospitalisations, the line is the crude rate per 100,000 population.

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

For more detail, see supplementarydata table H6.

Comparison between First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians

Compared with non-Indigenous Australians, First Nations people were three times as likely to be hospitalised due to thermal injuries in 2024–25 (Figure 9).

Figure 9: Injury hospitalisations due to thermal causes, by Indigenous status, 2017–18 to 2024–25

Notes:

1. Age-standardised rate 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.

In 2024–25, the injury hospitalisation rate due to thermal causes was highest among children aged 0–4 for both First Nations people and non-Indigenous Australians (Figure 10). However, across all age groups, the rates for First Nations people were more than twice those of non-Indigenous people.

Figure 10: Injury hospitalisations due to thermal causes, by Indigenous status and age group, 2024–25

Notes:

1. Crude rate 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 supplementarydata table H6.

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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