LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) -- Firefighting is one of the most dangerous jobs out there. Despite the danger, some will call it the greatest job in the world. They rush into burning buildings, and it requires caution and professionalism on every call they make.
The Threat
But there's a threat that can haunt those firefighters after every call they make.
Cancer is a silent killer that is striking men and women in the fire service at rates far above what typically strikes the general public. It's a fight they face after the fire.
"When I was diagnosed, it was a real punch in the stomach," said Captian Ed Woolf of the Little Rock Fire Department. "We didn't realize 25 years ago we were going to have all these guys coming up with cancer in the fire service."
Woolf has been fighting fires for more than 20 years. He has risen through the ranks and today serves as the public information officer for the department. He's the man the media meets on the scene. He's also recovering from a battle with thyroid cancer, with a red scar just below his neck to prove it. It's a battle scar that may have developed from coming up in a time when machismo ran alongside the bravery that's required for the job.
"The mantra or whatever you want to call it in the fire service was that if you had dirty gear you were a smoke-eater," said Assistant Chief Doug Coney. He is in charge of operations for the LRFD. "Dirty gear showed you were a veteran."
The Stats
But Coney has seen the statistics and research piling up. A request from a dying colleague convinced him the biggest dangers firefighters face come in the moments after the fire is out.
"When you've got a 27-year-old that's been diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer and when we lost a great guy that was a 32-year-old captain to stage-four colon cancer it gets difficult," Coney said.
The reasons for the cancer danger come because we don't build houses like we used to. As modern fire debris smolders, it releases a toxic mix of chemicals.
Those chemicals seep into a firefighter's skin and radiate from the equipment they wear, especially around the damp protective gear like hoods that end up draped around a firefighter's neck after they emerge from a burning house.
Advocates are sure that exposure there in the front yard leads to cancer. Those labor leaders point to studies showing 60% of their members are at risk of dying from cancer. That's a rate significantly beyond the general population.
"Right now we know of at least six cases where our members have passed away at a young age," said Wade Marshall, the legislative affairs director for the Arkansas Professional Fire Fighters Association.
Coney uses his position in the state's largest pro fire service to get ahead of the threat by educating his and other departments.
The need to get to data lead him to direct hazmat teams to respond to every scene now.
"When we've got guys getting out in the front yard and they're seeing hydrogen cyanide as high as 70 parts per million in the front yard, it tells us we've got some issues we've got to get addressed," Coney said.
Combating The Risk
To lessen the cancer risk, firefighter equipment needs to be washed immediately in specialized industrial washing machines. It needs to be done after every fire, and the process of getting the gear or "turnouts" off the body and into the washer requires several steps.
"We wash the liner separate from the exterior part of the garment," said Coney as he oversees two LRFD engineers stripping out of their gear. "You take the liner out of it. You pull the liner inside out and you wash it separate from the liner."
From there the separate pieces are tossed into the machine. Little Rock can afford to have one at most stations, but if calls come back to back, there's no choice currently but to put the dirty gear back on and head back out.
The Help Needed
So Coney hopes to convince the city to come up with the money for a second set of turnouts for every person in the department. However, that won't be cheap. For smaller departments, it's the specialized washers that can busts the budget.
"The cost for a small [washer], and they're based on capacity, would run from $6,000 up to $10,000 for a large capacity," said Marshall. To solve that problem, his organization is creating mutual aid agreements, to get departments, and local tax-payers to share the cost of the washers.
In the meantime, Coney is driving departments, both large and small to use low tech preventive measures.
Heavy duty wipes are crucial.
And Marshall is working on a plan for this spring to get lawmakers to use an older law that sets aside insurance money. It originally helped cities buy things like engines and rescue tools. He thinks it should be an easy adjustment.
"We're hoping that one of the purposes of that law was to get gear for firefighters will now go toward firefighter safety," he said.
It's all to make sure these men and women don't go from fighting a fire to fighting for their lives.
"You would think that people would do the right thing and find the money to solve the problems," said Woolf. "These are issues that we know exist now, and we can help prevent some of this. It shouldn't be about money getting in the way."
The Professional Fire Fighters Association has been busy since the last legislative session working to get cancer recognized as a line-of-duty injury or cause of death.
Last week, an Arkansas appeals court ordered a case be reconsidered. The lower court had ruled against a firefighter's widow who claimed cancer from the job was the direct cause of his eventual death.
A ruling there, coupled with laws passed in 2015 that made getting death benefits a little easier for families could make Arkansas a state that treats cancer as a "presumptive" cause of death or illness.
In the meantime, most large professional departments can rely on health insurance to cover their care if and when they get a cancer diagnosis.