Fire Cast, a podcast from MDM Publishing, brought to you an association with UK Fire Magazine reporting to the United Kingdom Fire Protection Industry and Fire Services.
Welcome to another fire cast where we get to discuss some of the key issues with the big players in the fire industry. I'm Paul Hutton, and today on the Fire Cast we are joined by Brian Hesler, who's consultant advisor on Fire and Rescue, who advises among other people, Drager.
And we've also got Steve Luke on the podcast. He's an instructor at the Fire Service College and of course, as always, we'll hear from Duncan White group editor of MDM Publishing Now as you'll have seen hosted on the UK Fire. Site Drager has conducted a survey into the health concerns of serving firefighters.
This is a follow up to it's 2020 Health for Firefighters Survey and seeks to find out if perceptions have changed, specifically with regard to firefighters potential exposure to cars, Jens contaminants and viruses such as Covid 19. It also investigates which technologies are seen as the most important.
In supporting Firefighter Health, ultimately the purpose of the research is to inform on how industry can further support fire services and their personnel, and help drive the cultural changes that are required to protect firefighter health. The research follows a report released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is a world Health organization body in which firefighting was declared as a carcinogenic occupation.
So let's discuss the survey results from varied industry perspectives and make recommendations for what actions will support Firefighter health. Brian and Steve joined me now on the fire cast. And, uh, looking at the key stat, we see 100% of survey respondents admitted concern that exposure to Carcin gens would impact their long term health, and nearly two thirds categorized this concern as considerable, while 70% of respondents stated that the reduction of carcinogen exposure as a firefighter.
Was extremely important in their working environment. So Brian, when you hear all those and all the other stats were put in the blurb to go with this podcast, did you find these results a surprise or to be honest, were they what you expected? To be fair, if an asked this question 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I'd have, I'd have said I was surprised to see these results.
However, with the development and the Chelsea development of work around Covid protection of firefighters through covid and some of the research results that have come out of work done by likes of Elan in Lancaster, but also around the world, uh, N F P A and the recent statement from W H O, then I, I don't think these are surprising.
In fact, some of the figures I think are a bit low. I think some firefighters are extremely concerned about this more than maybe they're let on. There's still a bit of, uh, bravado in the fire service about not wanting to appear a weak or at risk. I think a lot of the time, not both, that culture, culture is changing significantly.
Certainly since, since Covid is changed regarding clinics of kit and lack of awareness. I think if you go back 10, 15 years, there wasn't an awareness about. Carcinogens. You know, we knew firefighters around us, had colleagues die of cancer and, and, and heart issues and, uh, respiratory issues. But really we didn't tie that effectively back through proper research to the risk of contaminants.
And I think things have moved on. So we're in much better position now than were previously, but nor nowadays, I'm not surprised at these results. Steve, when you hear the concerns of firefighters, is this something at the, uh, college that you. Discover when you are talking to new recruits, it's new. So yes, the, the evidence is out there.
It's, it's been proven that it's happening. There is major issues, but it's, it's, it's a new way of working for us within the fire service. We get to see so many different fire services come down to the college, um, and interact with us. The problem is, is that the all tried to deal with it in their own way and it's, it's, it's trying to get the best of it and it's really, really hard one to, to get our head.
New people coming in, yes, we, we can educate them and they'll get it, but as Brian mentioned earlier on it, it, it, a lot of it is, it's what we used to do. So it's trying to change old habits and that's, that's the biggest thing. We certainly need that men in black moment with that pen that you flash everybody to forget what they used to know.
And reset the, the whole thing and educate them in a new way. Duncan, uh, what have you found in your experience both from, uh, well running a fire station and now your days as a journalist? It's interesting. Culture was mentioned there, and one word that I wrote down, I was listening to, to Brian and Steve there was, was ignorant.
I think we're finding ourselves. Uh, we've still got certain areas of the, uh, of the modern fire service that are working to a culture. And the badge of honor, dirty fire kit was always seen as a badge of honor. The dirtier fire kit was the more fires you'd been to, and that, uh, that was, uh, not only a UK issue, but that's a, that's a global issue.
We're now seeing a complete turn on that where, where Dirty fire kit is seen as a no-no, and the. People that joined the fire service, the younger element that, uh, are coming in now with a, with a greater education because that is the requirement for a, a recruit now to, to be highly educated. Whereas back in the day that Brian and I joined, the requirement was that you had some common sense and you were fit and then everything else you needed to know, you were told.
But I always liken it back to the, the father that came home from the pit, or the father that came home from the dockyard that had been lagging. Pipes with asbestos and his children, uh, grabbed all of him and, and hugged him as he came in in his dirty overalls. It used to make me shudder when, uh, firefighters would bring their children into, into fire stations and then put their fire kit on and then pick them up and show them a rain.
All we're doing is spreading the contaminants. So, uh, ignorance is no defense anymore. I know a number of fire services are trying to ignore it because it's gonna cost them money, but ultimately the, uh, health and safety at work. Will come into four, some people will start seeing some very high profile cases.
So yeah, ignorance is no defense. We are beginning to see, um, good changes in the way that this is being dealt with. The work being done by the manufacturers, such as Drager is beginning to see this as a norm. You've put ignorance down as one of the main challenges and barriers to implementing changes in reducing exposure.
What are the other challenges? Towards reducing exposure to carcinogens and contaminants. Personally speaking, my experience over the years is that any change in process, which involves either a. Better equipment, more advanced equipments, or potentially a better logistical supply costs money. And we mustn't forget that, you know, this is not a cheap solution to put in place a very effective, uh, cleaning and decontamination system.
For not just RPE breathing operators and so on, but also for ppe, likes of helmets, uh, tunics leggings and so on and boots. So it's not a cheap process and we all are the state of public funding at the moment. There's even further pressures coming down the line. I think politically, we're all sensitive to what's happening.
In the UK and around the world at the moment, that's not going to improve quickly. I think it needs to shift in, in focus for the fire service to see where resources are being put. And this needs to be raised up, the, um, shall I say, the importance ladder to be in a much more critical issue. Cause the longer we leave this and the longer we don't address it, then the bigger the impact and the.
Not just the bigger the impact, but also the number of people being affected by it will be increasing as well. And it's our job as manufacturers and it's the, it's a job of employers and the employees alike and government to work together to end up with a situation where people can go to work and come home safely.
And I mean, the point that's being made there as well by, by Duncan about families. I think we forget that sometimes it's more, tends to be more about the firefighter themselves at the, at the sharp end, but we forget the things that people bring home from work. So an effective showering process at the end, end of your shift, uh, a post incident is really important.
Making sure you're not taking any contaminated clothing home. There's also big questions about the underwear being worn by fighters. That base layer being worn by firefighters and actually contam being held in that. I know we're talking about the, the first line of protection, PPE and rpe. We must simply get the bigger picture, um, about the firefighter themselves when they leave the incident.
And if you can get that, if we can improve that focus in fire services to really bring this to the top of the agenda, we'll see firefighters being made much safer from contaminants and. Other risks attached to the likes of carcinogens. There's, it's not just carcinogens. There's other risks as well, but obviously it's important that that's dealt with as soon as possible.
On the cleaning side of things, and I mentioned funding, there's also a risk of trying to do it on the cheap. Once again, it revolves around funding. We see some brigades buy in non-approved equipment for certain items of PPE or rpe, and they try and do it with equipment that isn't approved by the manufacturer.
If you buy a manufacturer's particular type of product, then the equipment should be made and run with the appropriate. Detergents, the likes of the dis disinfection agents that don't damage the equipment, but also do an effective job. And it's getting that balance right. But we still see people, once again, linked to money trying to do things on on the cheap, and they learn the lesson after a year or two and end up coming back to the manufacturer saying, What do we need to do?
By then, money's being wasted and times being wasted. The other big thing for me is political sensitivities. I. Quite frankly, so frustrated with Silo working. We got the Fbu doing their piece of work, Very, very detailed piece of work with Ulan, a very well funded piece of work, which they put a lot of money into and received some funding for, but that's seen as a standalone.
It's not a, it's a piece of work by the Fire Brigade Union, not a piece of work on behalf of the fire service and what it needs. That is effective partnership work in between the fiber years union, the employers n fcc, and the government to make sure we end up with a proper. Holistic and scientifically underpinned and funded research project to end up with a very robust response to this particular risk.
Just to, to totally concur with what Brian said is, is we need to work with everybody, so we need the fbu, we need the face services, we need the manufacturer's big style to understand where it is and change in, in quality products are never gonna be. , but if you want the best of it, that's what it's going to be.
So down at the Fire Service College, we are spending a lot of time trying to educate the students that we get through. So obviously my main role is working with instructors. So they are the, the forefront of every fire service that deal with carcinogens and they get to teach everybody and speak to them about it.
So it is an education side of. The one thing that I will say that we need to be able to do and five services need to understand is that we need time to get it in there. So you need time to be factored in so they can have the showers, so they can clean the equipment, and then the turnaround of ppe, the turnaround of BA sets and all associate equipment.
There needs to be time factored into that, and that's a bit that we maybe don't understand and need to spend a little bit of time. That's the hardest part of it is getting the time for everybody to do their little bit to make this whole system work. Duncan, can I just ask you, we've talked about the fire service college, we've talked about manufacturers, we've talked about unions, Uh, what.
What role would the media play, given that you are the group editor of the, the biggest magazine to do with this? Nothing that we're asking firefighters to do is new. We don't need, uh, equipment, especially brought in to do this. Yes, there's equipment that can make life easier, but 30 years ago we took masks, offsets, and we washed them in a sink in the BA room.
We washed down back plates, we washed our helmets, we washed ourselves properly. This is nothing new. We just need to ensure that the service quite rightly gives the time required to effectively decontaminate not just ppe, but also the appliances that these, uh, guys and girls are writing. A lot of fine rescue services are now allocating what they class clean cabs, so they, uh, allocate a locker to put all the dirty equipment in.
That's fine. Where does the equipment go? That's been taken out of that, uh, Dirty Locker because we're always struggling. So there needs to be this realization that to do it properly, it needs to be done properly and time needs to be given to it. But that doesn't necessarily mean to say that it's gonna cost a lot of money from a media perspective, we.
Always put firefighters safety as our number one priority. So whenever I talk to, uh, manufacturers, fire and rescue services or any other interested, partly globally in the world of fire and rescue, we always look at firefighter safety. That is all about the education of how, for instance, it's being done in the uk.
How can that benefit a firefighter in the US in Guatemala, in a. It's a case of sharing knowledge and understanding one thing that the British Fire Service isn't good at. Is sharing things with each other. We know a lot of things that go on that some officers would prefer to cover up rather than being open and honest and sharing it with others so others don't make the same mistakes.
That said, it's getting better. I totally. Agree with what both Steven and Brian said in relation to, it's about time the N fcc, Fire Brigades Union Fire Officers Association, the government and any other interested partly sat down and said, this is about firefighter safety. We need to ensure that we all want people to go home, and more importantly, we want them to enjoy their.
We all know firefighters that have retired and then within 6, 12, 18 months we've been walking down the aisle with them on our back because they've not enjoyed more than a few months of their retirement. In an ideal world, every firefighter will claim their pension longer than they serve. It must be the aspiration of everybody.
It's certainly mine and hopefully Brian's as well, but it's education and it's putting aside political agendas for the number one agenda's gotta be firefighter safety. Brian, can I pick? On, uh, a survey which told us that four out of 10, when asked what would be the most important technology in protecting firefighters long term health, opted for contamination detection equipment, uh, with the next most important was biometric monitoring.
Now, what technology. Does exist. That really should be being used to be honest, whatever the cost, because you can't put a price on safety. As Duncan was saying, there's a number of challenges there when it comes to detection, and I think detection will, I'll address that point first. You can't buy protection equipment for a whole range of chemicals, contaminants, and it can be used in a number of scenarios.
But the question would be, first of all, where do you put it? Should it be in the cab? Should it be in the fire station? Should it be in all those locations where firefighters tend to work and do take dirty kit? That's the first question. So there is some kit available. The problem is it's limited in what it can achieve and it it's limited because you've gotta set that detection equipment to pick up.
Contaminants, there's, there's no sensor you can buy, which would pick up any contaminant. You, you can set it to pick up ISO perhaps, or to pick up, you know, various gases. But you'd have to put a sensor in for that particular contaminant. So if you want to do that, you'd have to focus on a number of key contaminants.
Carcinogenic, uh, products, you have to focus on them and I think there's a piece of research work to be done there. And drag is currently speaking to a number of research establishments in UK universities. One of 'em down in Homeside that we work with at the moment to try and develop some sort of a more, a more holistic detection system that will pick up a full range of potential contaminants.
Cuz if you look at. Just the products of combustion. There's a, there's a list as long as your arm, you know, there's a, there's a 30 or 40 potential contaminants there, which could cause cancer, and then you've got the additional issues about asbestos and, and so and so, which isn't linked to the fire itself, but obviously as a, a vi fire fi operations normally when you're breaking into buildings.
And so, I think that's an area that needs real research. It needs a, a real focus, understanding what the main threats are, where those threats manifest themselves on the incident ground, on the appliance, back at the station, officer's cars. Even officers drive to fires in their own cars. IRS normally in the boot of the car that's on-call officers.
It's obviously a much more challenging for on-call firefighters, uh, return firefighters cause they're effectively leaving a place of work. Which is a full-time job normally on leaving the home straight to a fire and often straight back home again. So we need to address that cultural in that particular particular role that On-Call Firefighter has.
But I think if we can understand exactly where these risks exist in the service and where the locations are, but work to develop better technologies. I mean, Drager have got detection equipment that will pick up the bulk of the carcinogenic components, but the problem you've got is which ones you want to detect.
You can't detect all of. There's not one piece of equipment in the world that will pick up all of them at the mor. So that needs close research with university to develop something new that's a bit more, bit more holistic for of a better word, than just a specific, uh, detection, uh, of a particular component.
And Steve, what are the important aspects of training when it comes to new technologies that are actually being implemented? I was very fortunate that I came from County d Downton found Rescue, where we brought. Whole contaminant policy with the help of Drager. So I've, I've lived this world, real life for a training environment and an operational environment.
And then I've obviously moved out to the fire service college, which I'm doing that there. And I think to jump on the back of what Brian's saying is that, yes, there's detection equipment out there, but really if you've been at a fire, we know there's contaminants. So the policy starts there. We don't need to protecting what's there.
We just know there's something, cuz you'll never narrow it down to the exact and you're not really bothered about the exact, if I'm honest, the start of this. And to really ingrain it in, in how we deal with, with contaminants, we just need to set the policy of, there's a cleaning raging that happens. It's as quick as once you've wore in a contaminated environment, then bag the kid up.
So take it away from the person. So it's lessening the contaminants. So it never ever goes into the cab, it goes into a a seal. Plastic bag and it's put into a locker, but because it's in a sealed bag, then it's not. Contaminate the locker. So it, it limits the, the issues that we have there. And then obviously, depending on fire services and what we're doing is, is what the cleaning range comes from there.
So we have kick cleaning companies with total care packages. Obviously you have pa set cleaning facilities, so whether it's the masks, the helmets, the whole set, it's getting that in place and just start and simple like we need a, it's, it's a huge subject, but we. Pick a couple of quick wins rather than trying to just encompass the whole thing because we'll just get swamped with what's going on.
Okay, so we've seen where we were, we've seen where we are now and where we would like to be, but where do you think we will be in, Let me throw out five years, which will be quite straightforward to predict and let's just throw out 50 years to see where, where we could be when it comes to firefighter safety in that.
I think I'll start it where we are now. I think that's probably a really good place to start because there's a lot of good work happen in brigades at the moment. It's not in every brigade. I think everybody is looking at it. Some brigades have certainly responded much more particularly than others at this moment in time.
And you know the point is mentioned by Steve there, D Darlington, we're at the forefront of it. There's also a good work in Lancasters share and whole host of other brigades across the uk. Certainly investing into proper cleaning systems. I mean, the manual cleaning system that, uh, Duncan mentioned where we used to wash in two buckets or in two sinks.
Yes, it works, but we've got scientific, uh, evidence to prove that the best way of cleaning kit beat operators kit is in a mechanical washing system and then a mechanical drying system. Make sure you don't damage. Equipment, it doesn't degrade over a period of time of regular cleaning. That's something I think that a lot of brigades are now beginning to move towards.
And it's, it's how fast can they do it? And it's also about how much can they actually put in place across the brigade. And the challenge is if you take Scottish fire or Mid and West Wales, for instance, they've got large areas of rural, uh, site to. And they've got, you know, very disparate fire stations there dotted about geographically dislocated for of a better word.
And then you've got the very urban brigade, the likes of, likes of London, the likes of, you know, Greater Manchester and Merseyside, where they've got a bigger challenge from a, a resource point of view. But it's much more, it's much easily addressed from a geographical point of view. Cause they're all fairly close together.
There's a different challenge in different brigades at the end of the day. I think that at the moment there's a lot of good work being done and that'll happen very slowly, I think, unless we see a better focus. Nationally, that focus is there. I mean, the government made a position statement, I think it was in 2021, on issues around contaminants and carcinogens.
For firefighters. Haven't seen a great deal since then from the UK government. Nothing really earth shattering, but at least they have got on their agenda, which is a useful thing on the clean cab issue as well. A lot of Bris and all investing into clean. Designs as well, where the equipment as, as Duncan mentioned, is in, is in lockers.
But that's, that's not cheap either. That's an, it's a very expensive investment on every single appliance in the UK to get that correct. And, and I don't know if that's on its own, the best thing we, we can do. It's certainly a big step forward, but there's other things we can do, not just the cleaners systems.
There's also things we can do around maybe having. As we see in the, on mainland Europe, particularly in Netherlands, Germany, and in Scandinavia, they have a logistic support unit that pulls up at every fire where it's a real fire situation, not false alarms, and they pitch up and they actually resupply the firefighters with new breathing operators, new PPE, and and bag and take away the dirty kit.
And that's, it's almost like two separate. Operations. You've got the cleaning system and you've got the operational system that works really well. It's the gold standard. It's very, very expensive to do logistically. You need more equipment, so a lot of money to spend that. It's on equipment, but firefighters generally speak and have no exposure to dirty kit.
After they leave the incident, they rob the dressing clean clothing and the stuff's taken away to be cleaned. And I think that's something that certainly in five years time, we'll be moving towards, I think, let's see, most brigades in five years with some sort of mechanical cleaning system or improved cleaning system.
And then beyond that, 50 years is a long time to look ahead in the terms of, if I look back what I was when I joined the fire service, which was not, not far off 50 years ago. Now, actually, if I look right back to that, the, the, the job's still the. What we do is different, and that's what needs to change.
The firefighting job is still the same, still the same sorts of fires, bit more advanced, different technologies. At the end of the day, it's still the same job, still the same risks, but we need to address how we, how we deal with the fallout from fires and, and I think in 50 years town, I would like to see zero risk to firefighters, or at least at very, very minimal risk and ne ne risk to firefighters.
From contaminants at a fire by improved systems and and proper research and proper investment. And 100%. I think the one bit that we, we maybe missing on this one is this, The bigger risk to firefighters is the training staff, the people who were in and around carins d and d out. Firefighters inherently, unless they're at a busy station, will come into contact with Carsons maybe just once or twice a year.
So if the clean regimes there, then it's gonna deal with that. But it's the training instructors, the training centers that we really need that. That's where we break the back of this. When we get in there, we teach the instructors and we get them the proper cleaning facilities and the proper monitoring.
That will pass on to the troops out on the ground. And that's where we'll, we'll actually break it and we'll get in there because as I said, you've got bring up roots instructors who were exposed to these contaminants day in, day out. And it's, the monitoring is, is, maybe it's not just to do with what's in the, the atmosphere or the environment that they're in.
It, it's, it's what it's doing to them. So it's like the, the full body check that needs to come in. So there's a, a huge piece of work where we really need to spend some time and work. Drager, which we've done down at the fire service college with the, the heat monitoring and obviously the effects of that.
But then also, if we can do the carcinogens and have an understanding and the potential exposure limits, then that's, that's what we need to do so we can quantify what's actually been affected to firefighters now. Even though this is an audio podcast, we are recording this on Zoom. So I've been able to watch Duncan White from MDM publishing all the way through scribbling notes, copiously as, uh, Steven and Brian have talked.
So last word to you, Duncan. Uh, what are your thoughts on what we've heard on today's fire cast? As we've heard from both Brian and Steve, I think we're in a position where every one of. As singing from the same song sheet. We want firefighter safety to be the number one priority. We want firefighters themselves to be fully aware of the dangers that Carns and all the other chemicals and toxic substances they come into contact on a regular basis with, and how that can affect not only them, but also their colleagues and also their families.
I think we've gotta start looking at this whole life system of a firefighter, not just the times they're on. And start saying that yes, they've got a responsibility for their own health, safety, and welfare. As has their employers. We need to look at it from a realistic point of view to say that if we had an unlimited pot of money, then every fire station would look like, uh, a studio from a previous episode of tomorrow's world, and we would have no issues at all.
We've gotta be realistic. We've gotta take this one step at a time, do what we can with what we've got to the best of our abilities. Now make full use of the clothing cleaning regimes that services put in place. One thing that does concern me and I will continue to bang the drum is where fire and rescue services see it as a sign of weakness to turn to manufacturing to find them a solution.
So I would urge fire and rescue services, and especially those in the research and development worlds. To reach out to professionals such as Drager and other manufacturers they deal with, to provide them with equipment and services and say, Have a look at us. Tell us how you can make us better. Because by getting a fresh.
New set of eyes in on an issue very often comes up with a very simplistic result that has been staring us all in the face for far too long. So in 50 years time, I'd like to think that fire safety had got us to a stage where there were very few fires, full stop, and firefighters would just go out to help and work with the community under state conditions.
But I think that's utopia, but a greater understanding and a greater awareness. I know Steve and his colleagues at the college and training centers across the UK are doing a great job at educating let's all work hand in hand to ensure that firefighter safety remains our number one priority. It may be a Utopia Duncan, but it.
The only aspiration the industry can have, Duncan White is group editor of MDM Publishing. Rounding off our fire cast today with our guests, Brian Hesler, consultant advisor on Fire and Rescue, who advises among other people the. Drager. And we also heard from Steve Luke, instructor at the Fire Service College.
So thank you very much for listening. That's it for this fire cast, but join us for another fire cast from MDM Publishing very soon. Fire Cast is produced and presented by Paul Hutton and is an MDM Publishing podcast in association with UK Fire Magazine.