More care and training are needed to save firefighters’ lives, report concludes
The number of firefighter fatalities has reached a rough plateau over the past five years, the National Fire Protection Association has found in its study of line-of-duty firefighter deaths that occurred in 1986. And that, the NFPA says, means the fire service will have to work harder to protect its own.
Heart attacks caused just slightly more than one half of the 113 deaths, a proportion that has climbed back to the high levels of early in the decade. Many of those victims should have been removed from active firefighting because of prior heart problems, the NFPA notes.
The proportion of deaths that occurred while firefighters were responding to or returning from alarms was also the highest in 10 years—one third of the fatalities occurred that way. Although the number has remained level among volunteers, the number of paid firefighters killed en route jumped to 18 from 7 the year before. That includes seven people killed in two multiple-death accidents. The report points out that “falls from fire department apparatus continue to be a problem, with firefighters riding outside or donning equipment while the apparatus is moving, despite the known hazards of such procedures.”
By contrast, deaths occurring during fireground operations were at their lowest level proportionately in 10 years, accounting for fewer than 40 percent of the 1986 fatalities.
The report also found encouragement in the fact that the total number of volunteers killed in 1986 dropped to 53 from 63 the year before and 71 the year before that. The number of deaths among paid firefighters has remained fairly steady for two years.
