Abstract: In order to study the influence of social factors on fire risk, grey correlation analysis method was adopted to calculate the correlation between social indexes, such as GDP, population and education level, and fire risk based on the historical fire data. The study shows GDP was positively correlated with the number of fires.The number of fires in provinces was strongly correlated with GDP, nevertheless the number of fires in cities was moderately correlated with GDP. There was a strong correlation between the resident population and the number of fires in each province, but the correlation was weak in less devloped provinces. The education level was negatively correlated with the number of fires when the education level of residents was low. However, the education level was positively correlated with the number of fires when the education level was high.

Key words: fire risk, economic factors, population factors, correlation analysis