In recent years, knowledge about the long-term health risks of wildland firefighting has been growing. Now, a new paper – published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene – paints a detailed and troubling picture of carcinogen exposure among wildland firefighters, raising questions about how to keep these workers safe.
Researchers pored over roughly four dozen papers that assessed exposure to various carcinogens on the fireline. They identified 31 carcinogens including asbestos, volatile organic compounds like benzene and crystalline silica.
“This review provides consistent evidence that wildland firefighters are regularly exposed to multiple carcinogens at varying concentrations across most work activity and is very much in line with the determination that the International Agency for Research on Cancer made in 2022,” said Kathleen DuBose, one of the study’s authors as well as the environmental and occupational health director at the Federal Firefighter Health and Wellbeing Program.
That World Health Organization body concluded that the occupational exposure that comes from firefighting in general is “carcinogenic to humans.”
Methods and results varied between the papers analyzed, and only a few found concentrations above official occupational exposure limits (OELs) set by federal regulators or other bodies.
But DuBose said that “not hitting these occupational exposure limits … doesn't mean that risk doesn't exist,” adding that “we are seeing these unique exposures in the wildfire environment and we really don't understand or know yet what they mean from a cumulative exposure standpoint.”
In the paper, the authors note that wildland fire is a uniquely arduous profession that “results in increased respiratory rates and consequently elevated exposure doses.” OELs, they write, also don’t contemplate “multi-pollutant exposures that may have additive or synergistic effects.”
DuBose said more research is needed to develop such exposure limits for wildfire, where multiple carcinogens are often present simultaneously. Her health and wellbeing program is already using the paper to inform efforts to reduce workplace risks, but she said everyone in the fire world has a part to play.
“It's going to take all of us to start thinking about when and where there are places that each and every day we can reduce exposure,” she said.
The paper makes several recommendations, like regularly rotating fire personnel out of areas with heavy smoke and locating incident command posts in places with less smoke impact.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
