TOLEDO, Ohio — "Firefighters are more prone [to cancer] than the general public, due just to the nature of our jobs," said Meredith Hill, one of Toledo's firefighters bringing attention to a serious issue in the firefighting community.
Hill says cancer is now the most common cause of death among career firefighters, with more than 60% of in-the-line of duty deaths nationally coming from the disease.
Toledo Fire & Rescue Department Battalion Chief Matthew Brixley explains that many modern building materials and house furnishings release harmful chemicals when burned, putting firefighters at risk through much more than just fire and smoke.
"We do wear our turnout gear, which protects us from heat and protects our lungs from some of those chemicals, but we're not encapsulated in a plastic bag when we go into these situations," Brixley said. "So the toxic soup atmosphere that we enter every time we go into a fire, it's still getting exposed to our skin."
To help shed light on this issue, Toledo's city council created a resolution calling for January to be "Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month" in the Glass City. The resolution states that by helping people understand the issue, Council hopes it will inspire localities to establish their own protocols for cancer screenings, behavioral health treatments, and other important changes. City councilwoman Michele Grim says that more people need to understand the unseen risks of firefighting.
"They put their lives on the line for us every day, so we owe it to them to do everything that we can to protect their health and safety," Grim said.
However, the resolution only calls for increased awareness and doesn't take the next step to make those changes directly. Grim says that further work is still needed.
"We can provide prevention education for firefighters, also try to limit their exposure by ensuring safe work practices, including proper PPE and respiratory protection," Grim suggested.
While Grim says neither she nor her colleagues on city council have proposed such legislation yet, she made clear that she will make it an ongoing priority to help the men and women in TFRD struggling with these issues.