Sixty-two firefighters died in 2019 from injuries sustained while on duty, 22 less than the 2018 total of 84 firefighters, according to a new report from the U.S. Fire Administration.
The 2019 total includes 10 firefighters who died under circumstances that were part of inclusion criteria changes resulting from the Hometown Heroes Survivors Benefit Act. When not including these fatalities for the purposes of a trend analysis, there were 52 non-Hometown Hero firefighter fatalities in 2019, for the lowest annual total since the USFA began this study.
Firefighter fatalities included 25 career firefighters, 34 volunteer firefighters, and three part-time or full-time members of wildland or wildland contract fire agencies.
The gender of the firefighters who died while on duty in 2019 consisted of one female and 61 males.
There were no multiple firefighter fatality incidents in 2019; therefore, the 62 deaths in 2019 resulted from a total of 62 fatal incidents.