VISION: An NFPA report from 2014 written by John R. Hall, Jr. The total cost of fire in the United States, as it is defined for this report, is a combination of the losses caused by fire and the money spent on fire prevention, protection and mitigation to prevent worse losses, by preventing them, containing them, detecting them quickly, and suppressing them effectively. Page 28 discusses the value of donated time of volunteer firefighters.