The FDNY is On Fire — Statistically Speaking

Recently, I picked up the 2012 report, Fire Department of New York Vital Statistics, which provides a plethora of information about the performance of our brave firefighters. After hearing about the dramatic decline in services in Detroit relating to the city's bankruptcy, I was curious about how our local heroes were doing. The results are truly amazing.

For background, the FDNY services over eight million people living in the 322 square miles of New York City's five boroughs. Their personnel include: 10,227 uniformed firefighters, 3,492 EMS, and 1,649 civilian workers. New York City has 218 firehouses and 33 EMS stations and the operating budget in 2012 was $1.67 billion.

The report indicates that there were about 500,000 fires in the city during the year, about 25,000 of which were structural. There were approximately 200,000 fire-related medical emergencies out of 1.28 million EMS incidents in total. Average citywide service response time was about four minutes for fires and medical emergencies. Overall, average EMS response time was eight minutes.

In total, 48,965 were rescued. 

There were 70 fire fatalities in 2012, which is a remarkably low number considering the size of the service area and the population density.

Our firefighters deserve our unqualified support and admiration for all they do to protect the city.