@article{ref1,
title="Fire characteristics associated with firefighter injury on large federal wildland fires",
journal="Annals of epidemiology",
year="2013",
author="Britton, Carla and Lynch, Charles F. and Torner, James and Peek-Asa, Corinne L.",
volume="23",
number="2",
pages="37-42",
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.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1047-2797",
doi="10.1016/j.annepidem.2012.11.001",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2012.11.001"
}