Firefighter fatalities in Sweden, 1937 - 2016

The purpose of this work was to present collective data on firefighter fatalities in Sweden between 1937 and 2016. Data presented is directly related to operations only. Fatalities due to long-term exposure of gases, particles, and physical/psychological stress or similar were not included in the study. Also, accidents involving ambulances as well as fatalities in direct relation to physical training were excluded. The data was collected from a large collection of newspaper articles, periodicals, magazines and reports. Over the period a total of 56 fatalities occurred, of which 19 fatalities were due to traumas, 15 fatalities were related to burns, 6 were related to road accidents or involved vehicles, 4 fatalities occurred during training, 4 due to cardiovascular problems, 7 due to asphyxiation and 1 fatality was due to drowning. 26 fatalities occurred inside structures and 30 outside.Conclusions from the data included that fatalities related to road accidents or accidents involving fire apparatus seems to be the highest cause in more recent cases and that fatalities related to structural firefighting seems to be the highest cause before introducing requirements on bringing a hose into structures (requirements introduced in 1986). Overall, traumas seems to be the cause to most fatalities in the Swedish fire service. Due to the small size of the dataset in conjunction with a long period in time, conclusions have been drawn with great caution.