Updated: Listed by USFA on 8 January.
On Sunday, January 5, 2025, Fire Apparatus Engineer Kevin Skinner responded to the scene of a residential fire. While searching for possible victims, he told his colleagues that he wasn’t feeling well. Fellow firefighters helped him from the home when shortly after he collapsed. He was immediately transported to the Providence Mission Hospital where he was pronounced deceased. The cause of his death has yet to be determined.
Age: 56
Rank: Fire Apparatus Engineer
Classification: Career
Incident date: Jan. 5, 2025 4:56 AM
Date of death: Jan. 5, 2025
Cause of fatal injury: Unknown
Nature of fatal injury: Unknown
Activity type: Search and Rescue
Emergency duty: Yes
Duty type: On-Scene Fire
Fixed property use: Residential
The number of on-duty deaths for 2025 currently is 1.
Go here to read the number of interior line of duty deaths for 2025.
Fatality status is provisional and may change as USFA contacts State Fire Marshals to verify fatality incident information.
For more information about on-duty deaths as recorded by the United States Fire Administration go to “Firefighter Fatalities in the United States.”
Earlier:
By Bill Carey
5 January 2025
ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. — An Orange County firefighter has died after falling ill during a search for occupants at a house fire on 5 Jan., according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
The department posted on Facebook that Fire Apparatus Engineer Kevin Skinner was searching for occupants during a house fire in the 29400 block of Pointe Royale in Laguna Niguel when he became unwell and was escorted outside to EMS personnel.
Shortly after, Skinner collapsed. Despite the efforts of personnel on the scene he did not survive.
Photograph courtesy of the Orange County Fire Authority/Facebook.
Data Not Drama 