The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) released the latest edition of its “U.S. Firefighter Injuries” report, which highlights data on injuries sustained by firefighters on duty in 2016. The statistics were collected from fire departments responding to NFPA’s annual U.S. Fire Experience survey.
There were 62,085 U.S. firefighter injuries in 2016, reflecting an 8.8 percent decrease from 2015, making this the lowest rate of injury since 1981, when NFPA began analyzing firefighter injury data. Of those injuries, 19,050 (30.6 percent) resulted in lost time.
The leading injury types in 2016 were: Strains, sprains and/or muscular pains (52.6 percent), and wounds, cuts, bleeding, and bruising (15.2 percent)