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Cancer message for firefighters (more)
Excerpts from FireRescue1.com:
It's clear that cancer awareness within the firefighting community has reached unprecedented heights. Recent studies have highlighted a disturbing trend: firefighters are experiencing higher rates of certain cancers, often at younger ages than expected. This alarming discovery has spurred the adoption of various new practices aimed at improving post-fire hygiene. One critical aspect is recognizing that turnout gear remains a source of potential carcinogens unless thoroughly cleaned. However, this presents a significant challenge for many fire departments, which are often ill-prepared or unaccustomed to maintaining regular cleaning schedules.
Even departments fortunate enough to have multiple sets of gear to rotate out after a fire frequently lack the capacity to clean them as often as necessary. Emerging protocols, such as gross decontamination conducted off the fireground, are being implemented to limit contamination and prevent its spread to vehicles, stations, or personal transport. Despite these efforts, the fire service still has a long way to go in fully embracing and executing these hygienic practices. Nevertheless, the initiatives being undertaken by several organizations show great promise.
Where We Stand:
Over the last two to three decades, the importance of regularly cleaning turnout gear has gained traction. Initiatives by firefighter safety groups like FIERO, NAFER, CAFER, and SAFER led to the creation of NFPA 1851, the Standard on Selection, Care, and Maintenance of Structural Firefighting Protective Ensembles, which set cleaning standards. These early efforts established guidelines for cleaning procedures, including machine types, detergent pH levels, and washing and drying temperatures. Surprisingly, little additional detail has been incorporated into the standard despite major advancements in the laundry industry. For instance, new methods such as ozone treatment, carbon dioxide-based dry cleaning, and various specialized machines and detergents are being promoted for improved soil removal from turnout gear.
Measurable Progress:
The professional cleaning industry cannot progress effectively without standardized metrics to assess the efficacy of different cleaning processes. Establishing methods to measure and confirm cleaning success, particularly in removing contaminants, is crucial to ensuring that current and future practices function as intended. Fortunately, some progress is underway. The Fire Protection Research Foundation, affiliated with the National Fire Protection Association, launched a project in May to develop methods for verifying the cleaning of turnout gear and demonstrating the removal of harmful contaminants.
Although this initiative might seem overly technical, it’s a complex issue. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that every fire generates thousands of unique combustion products, depending on the building's construction and contents. While some chemicals pose severe risks, others do not. Additionally, since no two fires are identical, pinpointing specific chemicals amidst the multitude present is challenging without advanced tools akin to a "Star Trek tricorder."
Challenges in Sampling:
Adding to the complexity is the task of sampling the clothing. Measuring low levels of contaminants requires extracting small pieces from the garment. Since contamination isn’t evenly distributed across the entire piece, logical decisions must be made about where to extract samples to generalize the results for the whole item. Most analytical methods used by labs focus on quantifying environmental contaminants in soil or water, which overlap with carcinogens found in fire smoke. However, these methods aren't always suitable for testing turnout clothing.
The new project aims to develop a methodology applicable anywhere to assess whether key fireground contaminants have been removed using specific machines, cleaning agents, or processes. For this to succeed, researchers must find a way to uniformly contaminate laboratory samples with a set of representative substances, embed these samples into surrogate full clothing items, and then wash the garments using the intended cleaning procedures. Afterward, the contaminated material samples can be removed and analyzed to determine if the substances have been successfully eliminated.
Replicating the Fireground:
A key component of this involves contaminating the material samples in a lab environment to mimic real-world exposure to fire gases and carbon particles in smoke, rather than merely immersing the materials in liquid chemicals. To achieve this, the research foundation’s contractor proposes using pellets containing known chemicals and carbon, burned in a high-temperature furnace with the resulting fumes directed over the material samples. Extensive validation work is required to confirm that these procedures accurately reflect field contamination and can consistently evaluate cleaning effectiveness.
If successful, specific cleaning equipment, agents, and processes can be assessed to determine which conditions best remove particular carcinogens or toxins that can be absorbed through the skin. Equally important, differences in equipment types, wash temperatures, and detergent chemistries can be studied to identify optimal conditions.
Future Implications:
Such procedures could lead to a future where independent service providers are certified for having the appropriate equipment and processes to remove turnout gear contamination, similar to how organizations are currently verified for repair capabilities.
Side Effects:
One consequence of more frequent cleaning, even when verified, is increased wear and tear on turnout gear, potentially shortening its lifespan. Laundering can accelerate deterioration, sometimes affecting the protective performance negatively. Therefore, cleaning processes must not only prove effective at removing soils and contaminants but also demonstrate they don’t cause undue wear or performance issues when applied regularly—more than once or twice a year.
Clearly, keeping clothes clean isn’t the sole solution to minimizing firefighter exposure to carcinogens. Exposures occur in numerous ways. Nonetheless, ensuring the removal of persistent contamination linked to adverse health effects represents a significant step forward in firefighter hygiene.