NFPA Journal - September/October 2020 - 78

FIRE LOSS 2019
only 11 percent lower, while estimated
injuries were only half as numerous. The
estimate of outside fires involving property of value was 18 percent lower in
2019 than in 1980. The biggest decrease
was seen in estimates of brush, grass, or
wildland fires with no value or loss (66
percent), other fires (62 percent), and in
outside rubbish fires (55 percent).

A condominium building was destroyed by
fire in Maine. In 2019, home structure fires
accounted for 26 percent of all reported
fires but resulted in 52 percent of all direct
property damage. GETTY IMAGES

US fire department
responses by incident type
Fire department responses have more
than tripled since 1980. From 2018 to
2019, they increased by 1 percent. The
scope of fire department responsibilities has broadened over the years to
include more medical aid, rescues, and
hazardous material incidents, as well
as a wider variety of service calls and
more requests for mutual aid. It also
includes more false alarms.
During 2019, US fire departments
responded to an estimated total
of 37,272,000 calls, 3.4 times the
10,819,000 responses in 1980. In 2019,
the 1,291,500 fires accounted for only
3 percent of total fire department
responses. Fires were a larger share of
the incidents in smaller departments.
Ten percent of the responses by fire
departments protecting fewer than
2,500 people were to fires, compared to
2 percent of responses by departments
protecting at least 50,000.
While fires have declined, other
types of incidents have increased. The
24,481,000 medical aid and rescue
responses accounted for two-thirds (66
percent) of all fire department responses
and were almost five times as frequent
in 2019 as the 5,045,000 in 1980. Medical aid or rescue calls increased by 4
percent from 2018 to 2019.
According to 2016-2018 data from
NFPA, most US fire departments
provided at least some EMS services.
Forty-five percent of all local fire departments provided basic life support (BLS),
but not advanced life support (ALS), and
17 percent provided both BLS and ALS.
Only 38 percent did not provide any EMS
at all. The percentage of departments
providing any EMS increased with the
size of the population protected.
There were also five times as
many mutual aid responses in 2019

(1,487,000) as the 274,000 in 1980. This
category includes traditional case-bycase aid provided when specifically
requested and aid automatically provided per a prearranged agreement.
According to the organization ISO Mitigation, automatic aid for structure fires
must be dispatched with the initial
alarm. From 2018 to 2019, mutual aid
responses fell 2 percent. While mutual
aid accounted for 4 percent of fire
department responses overall in 2019,
the percentage of mutual aid calls was
highest in the smallest departments.
The 2,893,000 false alarms in
2019 accounted for 8 percent of fire
department responses and was more
than triple the 896,500 in 1980. The
frequency changed little from 2018 to

2019. Half of the false alarms in 2019
were unintentional calls, 31 percent
were system malfunctions, 5 percent
were malicious, and 14 percent were
other or unclassified.
The 439,500 hazardous material
responses in 2019 accounted for 1 percent of fire department calls while the
744,000 responses to other hazardous
conditions, such as arcing wires and
bomb removal, accounted for 2 percent. The 5,936,000 other responses,
including service calls, smoke scares,
and other good-intent calls, accounted
for the remaining 16 percent of fire
department responses.
MARTY AHRENS is fire analysis research manager
BEN EVARTS is data collection & research manager
in the Data & Analytics Department at NFPA.

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