By Scott Stewart Vice President of Analysis People sometimes obsess over the potential threat posed by terrorist attacks that use things such as chemical weapons , electromagnetic pulses or dirty bombs . Yet they tend to discount the less exciting but very real threat posed by fire, even though fire kills thousands of people every year. The World Health Organization estimates that 195,000 people die each year from fire, while according to the Global Terrorism Database an average of 7,258 people die annually from terrorism, and that includes deaths in conflict zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq. There are also instances in which fire is used as a weapon in a terrorist attack.