ESO has published its 2025 Fire Service Index, which found that wildland fire incidents in the United States rose by 28% in 2024, with a total of 1.78 million acres burned.
The index, now in its sixth year, examined 7,919,600 incidents from 2,739 fire agencies across the country that use ESO’s reporting systems.
According to ESO, the data shows that while wildland fires are increasing in frequency and impact, fire departments continue to handle more emergency medical service (EMS) calls than fire incidents.
The index found that 25% of firefighters failed to document any decontamination procedures following fire exposure.
ESO stated that a lack of post-incident decontamination can increase long-term health risks for firefighters, including the potential for cancer.
Bill Gardner, executive director of fire and EMS for ESO, said: “We’re encouraged that 80% of departments are documenting one decontamination method after exposure, but we cannot stress enough the importance of increasing that number to 100% and establishing multiple decontamination procedures as the gold standard.”
The 2025 Fire Service Index found that EMS responses made up 65% of all reported calls in 2024.
In contrast, fire-related responses represented just 3% of all incidents documented through ESO’s platform.
This ratio reflects ongoing trends in the workload of fire departments nationwide, with emergency medical services consistently accounting for the majority of incidents.
Decontamination data is now available in ESO’s static benchmarking dashboards, which allow departments to compare their practices with those of peer agencies.
Antonio Fernandez, PhD, NRP, principal research scientist for ESO, said: “The insights we uncover can guide agencies to direct prevention resources where they’re needed most.
“By making these data freely accessible, we’re empowering fire departments nationwide to benchmark performance, identify critical trends and take proactive measures in their communities.”
ESO stated that the updated dashboard features are intended to help agencies improve safety outcomes by aligning local data with broader national trends.
ESO has published the 2025 Fire Service Index based on an analysis of 7.9 million incidents from 2,739 US fire agencies.
The report found a 28% increase in wildland fire incidents in 2024, totaling 54,489 fires and 1.78 million acres burned.
The data showed EMS calls made up 63% of total incidents, while fire incidents accounted for 3%.
The report also revealed that 19% of firefighters did not document any decontamination after fire exposure.
ESO introduced new benchmarking dashboards with decontamination metrics.
These tools allow fire departments to compare their data with other agencies.
Antonio Fernandez of ESO stated that the data aims to help allocate prevention resources.
Bill Gardner said that while 80% of departments documented some decontamination, more widespread use of multiple procedures is necessary.
The Fire Service Index release follows ESO receiving the NERIS V1 Compatible Badge for maintaining compliance with national incident reporting standards.
