NIOSH report on Firefighter Muller's death released by Irmo Fire District
- Staff Writer
- Apr 30
- 2 min read
Irmo, SC 04/30/2025 - On May 26, 2023, Irmo Fire District firefighter James Michael Muller was killed in the line of duty during a structure fire in an apartment building located at 167 Stoneridge Drive in Columbia, SC. At the request of the Irmo Fire District, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) investigated the causative factors relevant to the firefighter fatality.
Through the Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program (FFFIPP), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducts investigations of firefighter line-of-duty deaths to formulate recommendations for preventing future deaths and injuries. The program does not seek to determine fault or place blame on fire departments or individual firefighters, but to learn from these tragic events and prevent future similar events.
NIOSH investigators visited South Carolina June 25 through July 1, 2023, interviewing personnel from various agencies that responded to the fire and collecting data. Workload constraints and personnel changes at NIOSH pushed the delivery date of the report back several times.
The status of NIOSH is currently in transition. NIOSH is organized as part of the Centers for Disease Control and was recently eliminated as part of a cost cutting strategy, but that decision has been reconsidered and NIOSH along with the FFFIPP are expected to return. This report is one of the last to be completed by NIOSH investigators before their positions were eliminated, and the resources that were previously available to develop support materials and publish LODD reports on the NIOSH website no longer exist. NIOSH may publish this report on their website if and when the division is up and running again, but there is no estimate of when that might occur.
The Irmo Fire District received this report on April 10, 2025 with permission to disseminate the report as we saw fit. The report was initially shared with the Muller family and then shared with our personnel. The Irmo Fire District is a tight knit family and we are committed to supporting the mental health of everyone affected by the loss of Firefighter Muller, limiting the report’s distribution until now allowed us the opportunity to grieve again, process the report’s findings and prepare ourselves for it’s release.
It has been almost two years since we lost J, and in the interest of public safety and transparency the Irmo Fire District is now disseminating this report so that others may learn from it and commit themselves to preventing a similar fatality or injury in the future.
You can access the NIOSH report HERE.
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