Workers’ compensation injury claims among firefighters in Ohio, 2001–2017

•This study examined firefighter injuries in Ohio workers’ compensation claims.•The total number of claims has been decreasing over time.•The most common injury was overexertion involving outside sources.•Patient care and firefighting tasks had in different injury events and diagnoses.•Certain injuries may be impacted by seasonality. Background: Firefighters are at high risk for nonfatal and fatal occupational injuries. While some past research has quantified firefighter injuries using various data sources, Ohio workers’ compensation injury claims data largely have not been used. Methods: Public and private firefighter claims, including volunteer and career firefighters, from Ohio’s workers’ compensation data for 2001–2017 were identified based on occupational classification codes and manual review of the occupation title and injury description. The task during injury (firefighting, patient care, training, other/unknown, etc.) was manually coded based on the injury description. Injury claim counts and proportions were described across claim type (medical-only or lost-time), worker demographics, task during injury, injury events, and principal diagnoses. Results: 33,069 firefighter claims were identified and included. Most claims were medical-only (66.28%,