In some ways, the United States has made some progress. Fires no longer destroy 18,000 buildings as they did in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, or kill half a town of 2,400 people, as they did the same night in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. Other than the Beverly Hill Supper Club fire in Kentucky in 1977, it has been four decades since more than 100 Americans died in a fire.
But even with such successes, the United States still has one of the worst fire death rates in the world. Safety experts say the problem is neither money nor technology, but the indifference(无所谓) of a country that just will not take fires seriously enough.
American fire departments are some of the world's fastest and best-equipped. They have to be. The United States has twice Japan's population, and 40 times as many fires. It spends far less on preventing fires than on fighting them. And American fire -safety lessons are aimed almost entirely at children, who die in large numbers in fires but who, against popular beliefs, start very few of them.
Experts say the error is an opinion that fires are not really anyone's fault. That is not so in other countries, where both public education and the law treat fires as either a personal failing or a crime(罪行). Japan has many wood houses; of the 48 fires in world history that burned more than 10,000 buildings, Japan has had 27. Punishment for causing a big fire can be as severe as life imprisonment.
In the United States, most education dollars are spent in elementary schools. But, the lessons are aimed at too limited a number of people; just 9 percent of all fire deaths are caused by children playing with matches.
The United States continues to depend more on technology than laws or social pressure. There are smoke detectors in 85 percent of all homes. Some local building laws now require home sprinklers (喷水装置). New heaters and irons shut themselves off if they are tipped.

在某些方面，美国已经取得了一些进展。火灾不再像１８７１年芝加哥大火灾那样摧毁１８０００栋建筑物，也不像威斯康辛州皮斯蒂哥市发生的火灾那样在一夜之间导致一个人口２４００的城市半数重伤或死亡。除了１９７７年肯塔基州比佛利山晚餐俱乐部火灾外，已经４０多年没发生过一起造成１００多名美国居民丧生的火灾了。
但是，即使有了这样的成就，美国还是拥有着世界上最高的火灾死亡率。安全专家说，问题并不在于金钱或是技术，而是国人无所谓的态度，他们对火灾不够重视。
美国消防部门有着世界上最快的速度和最好的设备。他们必须如此。美国的人口数量是日本的两倍，但美国的火灾数量却是日本的４０倍之多。它在预防火灾方面的花费远不及扑灭火灾的花费。而且，美国防火安全教育几乎完全面向儿童，他们大批地死于火灾，但与公众的想法不同，他们中造成火灾的仅仅是极少数。
专家说，火灾并不真是任何人的过错的想法是错误的。在别的国家，人们并不这么认为。公共教育和法律使人们认为火灾是个人的错误或罪行造成的。日本也有许多木头房子；在世界历史上的４８起烧毁了超过一万栋建筑物的火灾中，日本发生了２７起。对造成火灾的人，严重的惩罚可能是终身监禁。
在美国，大多数防火安全教育经费被投入了小学。但这项教育所针对的人群是有限的；仅仅约９％的火灾造成的死亡是由儿童玩火柴而导致的。
比起法律或社会压力，美国依然更多地依赖技术。８５％的家中有烟雾探测器。现在有的地方建筑法律要求新建房屋需安装家用喷水装置。新的电热水器和熨斗在被倾斜放置会自动关闭。

刚才翻过一次，竟然被你删了？？！！