How does it compare with the number of fires in previous years?
The National Fire Incident Reporting System has related data sets, none of which provide numbers specific to food processing plants. But the data does provide annual averages on fires that could be related to those types of facilities.
For example, the annual averages of fires that have occurred in the U.S. between 2015 and 2019 are as follows:
All manufacturing and processing facilities: 5,308
Agriculture: 961
Grain or livestock storage: 1,155
Refrigerated storage: 35
cant find numbers but here
“Combine and tractor fires cause over $20 million in property losses each year and millions more because of lost time and downed crops during
photo of a combine corn header after a fire the busy harvest season. Fires not only cause huge losses and waste time . . . they also cause 40 or 50 serious injuries each year, and occasionally a person is killed because of a farm machinery fire.”
https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/agsafety/machinery/combine-and-tractor-fires-a-burning-problem/
Another site in UK said they have fires on farms each year that cause about $20 million in damages
The only relevant question. Are there more of these fires, or just more attention being paid to them? But I do know that comparing fires, at deca or centa million dollar food processing plants, to fires at empty barns, is the act of a clickbait troll farm.