In fact, fires related to outdoor grilling are not that rare, and they take a heavy toll.
Each year, outside cooking grills cause more than 6,000 fires, kill five people (and injure more than 170 others) and destroy about $35 million in property, according to records compiled by the National Fire Data Center of the U.S. Fire Administration.
Already this year, windblown embers from a barbecue on a third-floor balcony sparked a fire at a condominium complex in Carol Stream, Ill., on April 3. The residents had to be evacuated, and firefighters had to rip out drywall and part of the ceiling to bring it under control.
Just two weeks later, dozens of residents were left homeless when a fire blamed on a barbecue grill on a balcony caused heavy damage to an apartment building in Virginia Beach. A similar fire destroyed a building there seven years ago.
That’s why opponents of the grilling ban are losing ground. Before long, apartment and condo dwellers may well look back on holiday barbecues on the deck as a quaint tradition of the past — just one more advantage of single-family homeownership.
Nogler, the manager director of the Washington building council, emphasized that he wasn’t speaking for the members of his council, but he said it was clear that the International Code Council spent years working on the model code and thought it was important.
“This is a major fire safety issue,” he said.
you owe me a new keyboard, Gonz. 
