1. Fire characteristics associated with firefighter injury on large federal wildland fires
- Author
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Britton, Carla, Lynch, Charles F., Torner, James, and Peek-Asa, Corinne
- Subjects
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FIRE fighters' injuries , *WILDFIRES , *HAZARDS , *LOGISTIC regression analysis , *BINOMIAL theorem , *TIMBER , *FIRE management - Abstract
Abstract: Purpose: Wildland fires present many injury hazards to firefighters. We estimate injury rates and identify fire-related factors associated with injury. Methods: Data from the National Interagency Fire Center from 2003 to 2007 provided the number of injuries in which the firefighter could not return to his or her job assignment, person-days worked, and fire characteristics (year, region, season, cause, fuel type, resistance to control, and structures destroyed). We assessed fire-level risk factors of having at least one reported injury using logistic regression. Negative binomial regression was used to examine incidence rate ratios associated with fire-level risk factors. Results: Of 867 fires, 9.5% required the most complex management and 24.7% required the next-highest level of management. Fires most often occurred in the western United States (82.8%), during the summer (69.6%), caused by lightening (54.9%). Timber was the most frequent fuel source (40.2%). Peak incident management level, person-days of exposure, and the fire''s resistance to control were significantly related to the odds of a fire having at least one reported injury. However, the most complex fires had a lower injury incidence rate than less complex fires. Conclusions: Although fire complexity and the number of firefighters were associated with the risk for at least one reported injury, the more experienced and specialized firefighting teams had lower injury incidence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2013
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