Fires claimed the lives of 1,198 people in China in the first 11 months this year, down 7.1 percent year on year, Xinhua quoted the Ministry of Public Security as saying. About 119,000 fires broke out in China from January to November, down 19.1 percent, which caused 1.33 billion yuan (195 million U.S. dollars) in direct property losses, up 38 percent from the same period last year, according to the ministry's fire fighting bureau. The figures do not cover fires involving forest, grassland, the military and the underground part of mines. Rural areas saw a sharp drop in the number of fire accidents and death toll. But losses induced by fires in cities grew greatly by 94.8 percent, and township areas, 21 percent. It said electricity was the major cause of one third of the fires, with other reasons including careless fire use, smoking and spontaneous combustion.