2025 Texas Firefighter Injury Statistics: What the New TCFP Report Shows
Texas firefighters face occupational risks that extend far beyond structure fires. The newly released 2025 injury data from the Texas Commission on Fire Protection (TCFP) shows that firefighters continue to be injured during emergency responses, EMS calls, training, station duties, physical fitness activities, and other routine work.
The annual report also examines occupational exposures, illnesses, cancer diagnoses, fatalities, and behavioral health concerns affecting the Texas fire service.
For fire chiefs, training officers, company officers, and firefighters, the 2025 Texas firefighter injury statistics provide an opportunity to look beyond individual incidents and identify broader trends that may help departments improve training and reduce preventable injuries.
What the 2025 Texas Firefighter Injury Data Shows
Texas fire departments submitted more than 4,500 injury-related reports to TCFP during 2025.
Those reports included more than 3,500 firefighter injuries, hundreds of occupational exposures, and additional reports involving illnesses, cancer diagnoses, fatalities, and suicides.
The statewide reporting participation rate among regulated departments was also extremely high, giving TCFP a substantial amount of information to use when evaluating firefighter safety trends.
Rather than focusing only on the total number of incidents, some of the most important findings come from looking at where firefighters are being injured and what types of injuries occur most frequently.
Firefighter Injuries Are Not Just a Fireground Problem
When people think about firefighter injuries, structure fires may be the first thing that comes to mind.
The 2025 data shows a much broader picture.
Fire suppression accounted for a significant number of injuries, but Texas firefighters were also injured during EMS incidents, rescue responses, training activities, station duties, and wellness or fitness activities.
In fact, non-emergency activities accounted for a substantial portion of the injuries reported during the year.
That should matter to department leaders because it means injury-prevention efforts cannot stop at fireground tactics.
Departments should also consider risks associated with:
- Patient lifting and movement
- Equipment handling
- Training evolutions
- Physical fitness programs
- Station work
- Slips, trips, and falls
- Repetitive physical stress
Strains and Sprains Continue to Lead Firefighter Injuries
Musculoskeletal injuries remained the dominant injury category in the 2025 Texas firefighter injury statistics.
TCFP groups strains, sprains, bone injuries, and similar injuries into its skeletal injury category. These injuries accounted for the majority of categorized injuries reported during the year.
This is not a new trend. Skeletal injuries have consistently represented the largest share of injuries reported to TCFP in recent years.
For departments, the pattern reinforces the value of injury-prevention training that addresses the physical demands firefighters encounter every day.
Proper lifting, patient movement, equipment handling, physical conditioning, and ergonomics can be just as important to long-term firefighter health as traditional emergency-scene safety training.
EMS Responses Remain an Important Source of Firefighter Risk
EMS remains a major part of the workload for many Texas fire departments, and the 2025 report reflects the risks associated with medical responses.
Hundreds of firefighter injuries occurred during EMS incidents during the year.
EMS responses were also a major source of reported occupational exposures.
Firefighters reported exposure to hazards including blood, infectious diseases, contaminated materials, respiratory hazards, and other biological or environmental contaminants.
For departments providing emergency medical care, the data reinforces the importance of:
- Standard precautions
- Bloodborne pathogen training
- Appropriate PPE
- Respiratory protection when indicated
- Proper sharps procedures
- Decontamination practices
- Timely exposure reporting
Firefighter Burn Injuries Remain a Concern
Burn injuries continue to represent one of the most recognizable occupational hazards in the fire service.
The majority of reported emergency-scene burns in 2025 occurred during fire incidents.
However, the TCFP data also shows that burn injuries are not limited exclusively to emergency operations. Burns were reported during activities including training and station duties.
The findings reinforce the importance of structural firefighting PPE, SCBA use, equipment inspections, proper fireground procedures, and safe training practices.
Departments should also ensure that PPE policies remain current and that personnel understand the importance of routine inspection and maintenance.
Occupational Exposures Continue to Change
One of the more noticeable long-term trends in the TCFP data involves occupational exposures.
Overall exposure numbers have fallen significantly from the levels recorded during the COVID-19 era, when virus-related exposures drove totals considerably higher.
That does not mean firefighter exposure risk has disappeared.
The 2025 report includes exposures involving blood, tuberculosis, meningitis, mold, chlorine, contaminated water or sewage, carcinogenic substances, smoke and products of combustion, and other hazards.
These findings highlight the variety of contaminants firefighters may encounter throughout their careers.
Exposure reduction should therefore extend from the fireground to EMS scenes, stations, equipment, apparatus, and post-incident decontamination practices.
2025 Introduced Separate Tracking for Firefighter Illnesses
The 2025 TCFP report includes an important reporting change.
Before 2025, illnesses could be reported to TCFP but did not have a separate reporting category. They were included with injury data.
Beginning in 2025, TCFP began tracking illnesses independently.
This should provide the Texas fire service with better information in future years about illnesses associated with emergency operations, training, station activities, fitness, and other job-related circumstances.
As additional years of data become available, departments may be able to identify occupational illness trends that were previously difficult to separate from general injury statistics.
Firefighter Cancer Remains a Long-Term Occupational Concern
Cancer continues to be a significant issue within the Texas fire service.
Dozens of cancer diagnoses were reported to TCFP during 2025, involving multiple types of cancer.
However, TCFP specifically cautions that the cases reported through its system represent only a fraction of the cancer cases Texas fire departments are currently managing.
That limitation is important when interpreting the statistics. The number of reports submitted to TCFP should not be viewed as the total number of Texas firefighters diagnosed with cancer during the year.
The report reinforces the importance of long-term exposure reduction strategies such as:
- Consistent use of appropriate PPE
- Reducing unnecessary exposure to products of combustion
- Cleaning contaminated PPE and equipment
- Post-fire decontamination
- Firefighter health monitoring
- Participation in annual physical examinations
Behavioral Health Is Also a Firefighter Safety Issue
The annual TCFP report addresses more than physical injuries and occupational diseases.
It also includes reported firefighter suicides and provides information about behavioral health and crisis resources.
TCFP recommends that departments increase awareness of suicide-prevention resources and consider partnerships with organizations that specialize in firefighter behavioral health.
The inclusion of suicide data alongside injuries, exposures, illnesses, and cancer reinforces an important point: firefighter safety includes both physical and mental health.
What TCFP Recommends Fire Departments Do
After reviewing the 2025 data, TCFP issued several recommendations and reminders for Texas fire departments.
Encourage Annual Physical Exams
TCFP reminds departments that a new Texas law requires fire departments to offer comprehensive annual physical examinations to firefighters.
The Commission recommends that leadership encourage firefighters to take advantage of those examinations and understand why regular health screening matters.
Strengthen PPE and SCBA Training
TCFP recommends company-level training related to the PPE and respiratory-protection standards required under Texas law.
Departments should also keep PPE policies current, enforce those policies, and ensure personnel routinely inspect their protective equipment.
Review Fireground SOGs
Departments are encouraged to review fireground standard operating guidelines to make sure they incorporate current research and best practices.
When procedures change, firefighters should receive training on those updates.
Increase Behavioral Health Awareness
TCFP recommends increasing awareness of suicide-prevention resources available to firefighters and developing partnerships with organizations focused on fire service behavioral health.
Improve Cancer and Suicide Reporting
The Commission also encourages departments to report known cancer diagnoses and suicides through the FIDO injury reporting system.
More complete reporting gives TCFP a better picture of the risks affecting firefighters throughout the state and can improve future recommendations.
What Can Fire Departments Learn From the 2025 Statistics?
The biggest takeaway from the 2025 Texas firefighter injury statistics may be that firefighter risk exists throughout the entire workday.
Firefighters can be injured during structure fires, but they can also be injured moving a patient, participating in training, exercising at the station, handling equipment, or completing routine duties.
Likewise, some of the most serious occupational threats may not result in an immediate injury at all.
Repeated exposure to contaminants, occupational illness, cancer, and behavioral health challenges may affect firefighters over months, years, or an entire career.
That makes injury data valuable for more than annual reporting.
Training officers and department leaders can use statewide trends to evaluate their own programs and ask:
Are we training for the risks our firefighters are actually experiencing?
Need Credit for the 2025 TCFP Injury Report?
The complete TCFP report contains the detailed statistics, tables, comparisons, and recommendations firefighters should review.
If you need credit for completing the 2025 TCFP Injury Report review, CE Solutions offers the 2025 TCFP Injury Report course and exam online for $25.
The course allows firefighters to review the report and complete the exam needed to document successful completion.
Complete the 2025 TCFP Injury Report Course & Exam
Read the Complete TCFP Injury Report
Firefighters, training officers, and department leaders should review the complete report for detailed information about statewide injury and health trends.
View the Official TCFP Injury Reports
The annual data provides departments with an opportunity to learn from incidents occurring throughout Texas and use those lessons to improve training, policies, health programs, and firefighter safety.
Understanding how firefighters are actually being injured is one of the first steps toward preventing the next injury.
