Not to rain on your parade, but comparing the stats from here
On the other hand UK cites 519,000 fires over the whole territory, versus 190,000 in Italy, which I find a very strange disparity. And yet UK cites 477,000 false alarms versus the 21,000 cited in Italy, so clearly there are reporting differences.
Nevertheless, in the detailed categories there are some similarities. It seems the British have similar problems with chimneys (12,000 UK to
7,400 in Italy), but they are more careful with their cigarettes (4,336 UK to 7,400 Italy). Unfortunately Italy doesn't report kitchen related fires, only 15,387 other causes (and electrical is one figure, titled 'general electrical causes'), so it becomes impossible to compare kitchen fires in homes.Comparing with the US, the 27,248 kitchen fires reported in UK constitutes over 50% of total residential fires (47,769 total), while in the US, kitchen ignited fires are 26% of residential fires. So it seems the Brits are even more inattentive than the Americans when it comes to cooking.
Despite that, residential fires in the UK are half those in the US:
48,000/59,000,000 UK versus 401,000/280,000,000 (.0008 to .0014). Yet, nonresidential fires in the US (115,000)are less than those in the UK (37,600), percentage-wise (.0004 US to .0006 UK).For the rest of your broad stroke picture, as with all such overreaching generalities, it needs to be applied with care. To lump northern Italians, southern Italians and Spaniards together is like lumping the Danish, Irish and Brits together. There is a cultural bias in Italy of looking for ways to 'circumvent authority', but this is changing, and has been doing so over the past 20 years, especially in the north (meaning from the Alps to Rome.)
Marcello