It’s not the flames or even the smoke. It’s the toxins that escape during a fire that are causing high cancer rates among the nation’s firefighters.
In the new film “Only the Brave,” 19 members of the elite Granite Mountain Hotshots, a skilled team of firefighters from Arizona, die when a bolt of lightning ignites a fire and entraps the men.The real-life deaths of these men, who’ve been called the Navy SEALs of firefighting, is how many people still think most firefighters die. But a surplus of new evidence shows that it’s not just the flames themselves or the inhalation of smoke that’s taking our firefighters in historically large numbers.It’s the toxic and often carcinogenic soot that’s left behind on the fire gear and the firefighters themselves.In fact, neither heart disease nor lung disease is the number one killer of firefighters in 2017.It’s cancer.And it’s largely because fires have gotten far more toxic in the past 25 years.~snip
The list of cancers in Oregon that are presumed to be connected to firefighting include testicular, lymphoma, leukemia, myeloma, lung, brain, breast, and colorectal.
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Joseph Finn, the fire commissioner and head of the Boston Fire Department, said the increasing cancer danger is because of the plastics that are so commonly found now in most structures, as well as the fire retardants used on furniture and other things found in homes and offices.“Almost everything in modern buildings today is made of processed plastic. And it burns very hot and fast and gives off more carcinogenic by-product than traditional fires did in years gone by,” Finn told Healthline.This has led to a national and global cancer crisis among firefighters, he said.
https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...firefighters#8
Cancer is now the leading cause of death among firefighters.
Given the importance of firefighting services in everyone's lives, if something isn't done to make a career as a firefighter, not either an automatic death sentence or at the very least a guarantee of future cancer treatment, it is imperative that the forces of technology be marshaled to ensure that firefighters have the best equipment that can be designed to protect their lives. The linked article notes that cancer caused 70 percent of line-of-duty deaths for career firefighters in 2016.