BACKGROUND Each year bushfire threatens Australia's rural, forest, and urban-rural areas. Australia's rural fire fighters work to curtail this threat in hot, smoky conditions, often at risk to their physical health. General practitioners, especially in rural areas, can help preserve the health of fire fighters during the fire season by understanding the stressors they face on the fireground. ...

PURPOSE To determine whether certain subgroups of fire fighters are prone to work-related diminished health requirements. METHODS The health requirements for fire-fighting were tested in a workers' health surveillance (WHS) setting. These health requirements included psychological, physical and sense-related components as well as cardiovascular risk factors. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confid...

Fire fighters are at risk of falling through fire-damaged floors. Fire burning underneath floors can significantly degrade the floor system with little indication to fire fighters working above. Floors can fail within minutes of fire exposure, and new construction technology such as engineered wood floor joists may fail sooner than traditional construction methods. NIOSH recommends that fire fi...

BACKGROUND A previous investigation showed an increased risk of testicular cancer among fire fighters in Wellington City, New Zealand, during the 1980s. Other studies of fire fighters had not identified testicular cancer as an occupational disease. METHODS This was an historical cohort study of mortality and cancer incidence in all paid New Zealand fire fighters, from 1977 to 1995. RESULTS ...

We describe a simulation model concerning a scenario of a burning forest and fire-fighters battling with blaze. The simulator addresses three layers of the scenario. We model spreading of the fire, a network of sensors gathering temperature data from the forest and fire-fighters actions taken automatically on the basis of sensors data. We also provide initial simulation results showing how the ...

The acute and chronic effects of fire fighting on pulmonary function were studied in 54 fire fighters from Connecticut, 32 smokers and 22 nonsmokers. Baseline studies of maximum expiratory flow-volume curves while breathing air and a mixture of 80 percent helium and 20 percent oxygen revealed obstruction of the small airways in 35 percent (nine) of 26 smokers and 13 percent (two) of 15 nonsmoke...

Some studies suggest that fire fighters are at a higher risk of developing coronary heart disease than are males in the general population. We followed 1646 men for 10 years to determine the incidence of coronary heart disease. Subjects were participants of the Normative Aging Study, a longitudinal study of aging. Comparison of fire fighters (n = 171) and non-fire fighters (n = 1475) showed no ...

Fire fighters face many hazards in the line of duty. The risks of severe and potentially fatal injuries from the dangerous environment of a fire scene are well known. Additionally, fires generate toxic contaminants, some that are known or suspected to cause cancer. Less is known about long term health effects fire fighters may experience as a result of such work-related exposures. One question ...

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Among the various hazards fire fighters face are electrical hazards during wildland fire suppression activities. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports that 10 fire fighters died from contact with electricity during wildland fires between 1980...

OBJECTIVE The main purpose of this paper was to explore the environmental factors which are considered to influence the workload of fire-fighters in Chile. METHODS Work studies were conducted during actual fire fighting in order to synchronise the various activities with cardiac frequency responses. At each fire environmental temperatures were recorded, and as an indicator of the increased de...