INCIDENT MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY

IMTFIRE.COM · FIRE SERVICE ANALYSIS

The Lottery of Death

For 27 years, NIOSH has investigated firefighter line-of-duty deaths and told the fire service — in writing, case after case — how to prevent the next one. The same recommendations have been issued thousands of times. The deaths on this page trace back to information that did not reach the right place in time, and to systems that did not close the loop — not to the judgment of the firefighters who died.

Two cohorts appear throughout and are always labeled: the NIOSH-investigated cohort (1,111 victims across 748 incidents — a non-random ~20% sample of all deaths) and the USFA registry (3,916 records, the full population of U.S. firefighter fatalities, 1990–2025).