An analysis of statistics from the U.S. Firefighter Fatality Database shows that while the number of firefighter fatalities have remained fairly consistent during the last decade, the percentage of firefighters killed during training has escalated, accounting for one out of 10 firefighter fatalities in 2003.

Although firefighters make up the largest portion of 87 training deaths over the last decade with 38 dead, fire service members of nearly every rank have died as a result of training, including 12 captains, four fire chiefs, two battalion chief/district chiefs, one safety officer and one fire marshal. The cardiovascular health of firefighters plays a major role. The leading cause of fatal injury to firefighters during training is “stress/overexertion,” or heart attack.

To help fire departments improve the safety of firefighter training, the U.S. Fire Administration is offering the special report “Trends and Hazards in Firefighter Training.” The report offers several possible reasons for the increase in training injuries and fatalities: the broader range of services fire departments provide to their communities (hence training for a greater variety of hazards and less time and energy to focus on basic fire suppression skills); the declining number of fires (hence a reliance on live-fire training and burn buildings); and overconfidence in the protection offered by personal protective equipment (hence firefighters going deeper into buildings and staying longer than is safe).

“Trends and Hazards in Firefighter Training” also offers strategies that all fire departments can deploy to improve the safety of their training programs. For a copy of the full report, see www.usfa.fema.gov/fire-service/techreports/tr100.shtm on the USFA Web site.