Reality is more complicated than that. Grandparent is right about deaths from fire in many parts of the world. The following deals with the fire death rate from 1979 to 1992.

The U.S. fire death rate fell 46.3 percent, from 36.3 fire deaths per million population in 1979 to 19.5 fire deaths per million population in 1992. As shown in Figure 2, however, this trend was not limited to the United States; rather it was international. Of the countries considered, only Hungary and Denmark recorded increases in their rates of fire deaths over that period – all the other countries lowered their fire death rates. The reduction in fire deaths for the United States (46 percent, or 16.8 fire deaths per million population) was the largest absolute and relative drop of any of the countries shown – almost twice the size of the next biggest drop (the United Kingdom, with a reduction of 38 percent, or 9.0 fire deaths per million population).

-- "Fire Death Rate Trends: An International Perspective"

For the US in particular, this trend has continued into the present.

We leave as an exercise to the reader what exactly the flaw in your argument was.

Single datapoints rarely matter with these kinds of things. The overall statistics strongly support the grandparent's point.

I think the prevalence of the "falsely shouting fire in theater" quote is a product of usage of that quote in an important freedom speech decision (that ultimately ruled against free speech).

Thomblake suggests convincingly that the quote was referencing a then recent disaster, but you are correct that the circumstances in theaters today are so different that the quote lacks the same impact as when it was written. In other words, the same legal reasoning today would probably be supported by a more culturally relevant example.

For what it is worth, the legal standard on liability for possible harm from speech is different (and more speech protective) than the decision in the Schenk case from which the quote originates.

Wedrifid was saying that people aren't that likely to stampede or even evacuate if someone yells "fire" now. I think he's right. If I started shouting "fire" right now I think the people around me would think I'd snapped and would at the least ask what I was seeing that they weren't.

(If I actually wanted people to listen to me I would start by asking "do you smell fire?" to the person next to me. Two people shouting fire is much less likely to be someone hallucinating.)