The Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program (FFFIPP) is administered by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It performs independent investigations of firefighter fatalities in the United States, also referred to as line of duty deaths (LODD).
The programs goals are:
to better define the characteristics of line of duty deaths among firefighters
to develop recommendations for the prevention of deaths and injuries
to disseminate prevention strategies to the fire service.[1]
In 1998, Congress funded NIOSH to implement FFFIPP recognizing the need for further efforts to address the continuing national problem of occupational fire fighter fatalities--an estimated 105 each year.[2] The NIOSH-FFFIPP has a 14-person staff and a $2 million budget[3] and has conducted over 400 investigations since its inception in 1998.[3]
In April 2014, Fire Engineering reported the release of a NIOSH map tracking firefighter deaths as part of the FFFIPP program.[4]
In August 2024, NIOSH put out a request for comment in the Federal Register[5] as to whether to include "human factors" in investigations.[6]