All except 17 (1.7%) of 990 fire fighters employed by the Western Australian Fire Brigade between 1 October 1939 and 31 December 1978 were successfully followed up to 31 December 1978. Mortality from all causes was less than expected (SMR 0.80 with 95% confidence interval 0.67 to 0.96). There was evidence of the healthy worker effect but none that mortality increased with increasing duration of...

Following paper shows the result of the development mobile robot ATRVJr for Fire Fighter Services dedicated to the risky intervention tasks. The concept of the hybrid software architecture based on Player and CORBA is shown. The basic functionalities such as SLAM, autonomous navigation and 3D map building are described. The HMI equipped with 3D visualization module is demonstrated. The experime...

This paper describes a support platform for integrating services and technologies, most of them specifically devoted to wildfire fighting. The platform presented summarizes a three years work project, funded by the Prometeo research project, involving a consortium of fifteen companies and several research centers and universities. Sensors, control command centers, 3D visualization technologies,...

The aim of this study was to assess the tasks and activities that make physical demands on Dutch fire-fighters and to compare them with a guideline related to the development of excessive fatigue. The occupational physical demands on Dutch fire-fighters were assessed by conducting a task analysis during 85 24-h shifts. While workplace observations on the duration and frequency of physical tasks...

Forest fires are an important problem for many countries. Prevention, surveillance and extinguishing tasks are costly and sometimes risky. This paper focuses on the surveillance of the fire embers once the fire is extinguished. This is a post-fire task which requires an important amount of terrestrial resources, especially if the weather conditions may provoke the re-ignition of the fire. We pr...

Background Prompt and safe extrication of motor vehicle accident patients is essential to allow efficient transport to hospital. A rapid extrication technique was developed in the Oslo-Akershus Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and fire service in 1999. The Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation trains fire fighters, police and EMS personnel in this technique. This study investigated how well the te...

The EVERSAFE project addressed many safety issues for electric vehicles including the crash and post-crash safety. The project reviewed the market shares of full electric and hybrid vehicles, latest road traffic accident data involving severely damaged electric vehicles in Europe, and identified critical scenarios that may be particular for electric vehicles. Also, recent results from internati...