NFPA Journal - November/December 2019 - 78

Firefighters in New York respond to an apartment fire that
injured 14 people, including 11 firefighters. The risk of
injury per firefighter in departments protecting the country's largest communities was six times that of the risk for
departments in the smallest communities.
ATILGAN OZDIL/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

irefighters work in varied
and complex environments
that increase their risk of
on-the-job death and injury.
Each year, NFPA studies firefighter deaths and injuries to
provide national statistics on
their frequency, extent, and characteristics. Earlier this year, NFPA reported
that there were 64 firefighter fatalities while on duty in 2018 (nfpa.org/
firefighterfatalities). A better understanding of how fatalities, nonfatal
injuries, and illnesses occur can assist
in identifying corrective actions that
could help minimize the inherent risks
of firefighter work.
Our study of last year's firefighter
injuries in the United States is based
on data collected as part of NFPA's
2018 "US Fire Experience Survey."
An earlier report, "Fire Loss in the
United States During 2018" (nfpa.org/
fireloss), measured the national fire

experience in terms of the number of
fires that fire departments responded
to and the resulting civilian deaths,
civilian injuries, and property losses
that occurred.
Based on data reported by fire
departments responding to the
2018 fire experience survey, we estimate that 58,250 firefighter injuries
occurred in the line of duty in 2018.
This is a decrease of one percent from
2017 and represents the lowest number
since NFPA began analyzing this data
in 1981.
In recent years, the number of
reported firefighter injuries has been
considerably lower than it was in the
1980s and 1990s, due in part to additional survey questions on exposures
to hazardous conditions and infectious
diseases-information that allows us
to place them in their own categories.
Previously, some of these exposures
might have been included in total

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injuries under other categories. NFPA
estimates that there were 6,175 exposures to infectious diseases such as
hepatitis, meningitis, and HIV in 2018.
This amounts to 0.3 exposures per
1,000 emergency medical service runs
by fire departments in 2018.
We also estimate that there were
47,150 exposures to hazardous conditions such as asbestos, radioactive
materials, chemicals, and fumes last
year, which amounts to 14.6 exposures
per 1,000 hazardous condition runs.
The increase in exposures in recent
years can in part be explained by the
heightened awareness about cancer
and other chronic illnesses in the fire
service and the importance of documentation. This could have resulted
in improved reporting for such
exposures.
An estimated 15,500 injuries, or
27 percent of all firefighter injuries,
resulted in lost time.

http://www.nfpa.org/firefighterfatalities http://www.nfpa.org/firefighterfatalities http://www.nfpa.org/fireloss http://www.nfpa.org/fireloss

NFPA Journal - November/December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - November/December 2019