NFPA Journal - Summer 2024 - 71

Conference Session
Firefighter Health and Safety:
Recent Research on Fatalities,
Injuries, and Fitness Programs
Date Tuesday, June 18,
10:30 a.m.-noon
Speakers Shelby Hall and Tucker
McGree, NFPA
fitness assessment, as well as a variety
of training and education recommendations.
Unfortunately, maintaining fitness
requirements can be difficult among
fire departments that struggle with staff
retention or a lack of funding. To that
end, we have begun preliminary research
that we hope will add to existing knowledge
about the relationship between
fitness programs and reducing injuries,
encouraging fire departments to take
necessary steps towards improving the
well-being of their firefighters.
N
FPA Research recently
began an analysis of firefighter
fitness programs
and their impact on reducing
common firefighter
injuries. A preliminary overview of that
work is presented here, and we will share
a more complete picture of our findings at
our education session at the NFPA Conference
& Expo® in Orlando in June.
According to NFPA research data, year
after year, the leading cause of firefighter
fatalities is overexertion and stress, often
resulting in sudden cardiac arrest. Additionally,
in 2022-the most recent year
this data has been analyzed-an estimated
36 percent of firefighter injuries
on the fireground were sprains, strains,
and muscular pain. For nonfireground
injuries, the figure increases to 56 percent.
While the number of fire incidents
and these types of firefighter injuries
have fallen over time, the number of
firefighter injuries per incident has not
seen the same downward trend. How can
we continue to reduce the risk to firefighters
as they perform extreme and
unpredictable workloads?
Although not the case for every form
of injury, the risk of strains and sprains
can be potentially avoided with improved
physical fitness. It should come as no
surprise that musculoskeletal and cardiovascular
fitness play an important role in
the ability of firefighters to perform their
jobs while minimizing their risk of being
hurt both on and off the fireground. Military
studies, for example, consistently
show that these forms of endurance
reduce the likelihood of injury.
For these and other reasons, NFPA
1583, Standard on Health-Related Fitness
Programs for Fire Department Members,
was created to help protect fire department
members. First published in 1995,
NFPA 1583 suggests components for a
Department size
and resources
Every five years, the NFPA Research
team sends out a survey that asks the fire
service about a range of needs; the next
survey will be distributed in 2025. The
analysis of this data results in the " Needs
Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service "
report, which identifies needs related to
personal protective equipment, training,
apparatus, and much more. The results
of the needs assessment are widely used
to assess areas of improvement for fire
departments nationwide. One of the areas
we query in the survey includes wellness
programs available for firefighters, including
behavioral health and physical fitness.
This series of questions was included in
both the 2015 and the 2020 versions of
the assessment. This data is interesting,
but unfortunately does not allow us to
analyze the relationship between wellness
opportunities and injuries suffered
by firefighters. However, in addition to the
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