[ WP ] You , a statistician , set out to figure out why there was a 93 % drop in fire related deaths in June of 1989 .

Papers everywhere. There were stacks on my desk. On my chair. On the floor. Notes and books and binders and it was everywhere, with only a small path from my desk to the door. It had taken months of research and digging to get to this point. 
 
 I had started this back in late April. It was just amusing... until i realized it wasnt a typo. In 1989 there was a radical shortage of fire-related deaths. Housefires and arson and wildfires yes, but no *deaths*. How? And why only in Washington? Nobody else had even noticed the phenomena. Anybody remotely interested would have considered it merely `` a good year.'' I was alone 
 
 I didnt know where to begin so i looked up articles online. After that i went to dozens of small towns across the state looking into newpaper articles that were too mundane to be backed up onto computer. Those too were on the floor. I was searching for any evidence on fires. And i didnt find much. If anything, the decrease was even higher. 
 
 A few deaths i did find could be contributed to other factors. `` Murdered before the fire.'' `` Heart attack and left the stove on.'' The one that stood out was `` Death in. burn ward after surgery complications'', but that was because the patient had preexisting injuries. 
 
 No other states had a similar occurance. As far as i could tell, no other countries did either. Those were all dead ends. 
 
 I had plunged into near insanity, chasing an answer that neither existed nor quenched my obsession. Every idea or scrap of information led me to look in another direction, leading me further and further away from closure. But then something occured to me. 
 
 I kicked over the paper stacks as i made my way over to my file cabinet.I grabbed the bottom steel handle and pulled the heavy bottom drawer out. In my this drawer i had cataloged all the fire-related deaths i could find in 1988, 1989, and 1990. Nowhere else on earth had as comprehensive a list as this. thumbed through the stack and pulled out two folders. 
 
 I went through the first folder. The last fire-related death in'88 was a schoolteacher from Yelm named *Joey Phillips. * Age 45. He had been found New Years day, burned alive the night before. According to the article the police were looking into it, i doubt they ever found much. 
 
 I went through the second folder and pulled out another sheet. Immediately my jaw dropped, my heart beating so hard it deafened me. A chill ran up my spine and spread across my entire body. The first death by fire in 1990 was on New Years. It was a carpenter named *Joey Phillips*.
