This report continues a series of annual studies by the USFA of on-duty firefighter fatalities in the United States. The USFA is the single public agency source of information for all on-duty firefighter fatalities in the United States each year. The unique and specific objective of this study is to identify all on-duty firefighter fatalities that occurred in the United States and its protectorates in 2004, and to present in summary form the circumstances surrounding each occurrence. The study is intended to help identify approaches that could reduce the number of firefighter deaths in future years. In addition to the 2004 overall findings, this study includes two special topics related to healthful eating and operational changes that can have an immediate effect on firefighter safety.

Fire-Related Firefighter Injuries in 2004 relies on data from the Nation's largest fire incident database, NFIRS, and on independent research from a variety of public and private organizations including the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)

This 14th edition covers the 10-year period 1995 to 2004 with a primary focus on 2004. For the first time, only native National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) 5.0 data are used for NFIRS-based analyses. The report addresses the overall national fire problem. Detailed analyses of the residential and non-residential fire problem, firefighter casualties, and other subsets of the national fire problem are not included. These topic-specific analyses will be addressed as separate, stand-alone publications.