Study Shows Health, Reaction-Time Declines In Firefighters
Thanks, Obama.
Having experienced hard labor in high heat and humidity conditions, but without heavy gear, I can confirm that it wipes you out and you start making bad decisions fast.
On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of fighting wildfires, since they clear out underbrush, add nutrients to the soil, and allow for new growth. If we insist on spending millions of dollars and so far 14 firefighters’ lives protecting the private property or public property use of a few people, we’re making the wrong investment. Sunken cost fallacy.
I would be interested to see what the Forest Service nutritional guidelines are. It would also be interesting to see how often the recommended meal is actually the meal that they eat. If the situation is dire enough, my guess is that they don’t have time to eat the recommended meal.
It would also be interesting to compare the long term health of firefighters to athletes who experience prolonged and extreme stresses. I’m thinking of professional bicyclists riding long tours such as the Tour de France. I understand that the exposure to stresses creates long term health consequences. It seems to me that firefighters would experience a similar response.
true - but what was part of natural cycles in pre-industrialized nation is now a disaster both habitat-wise and forest - wise as human enroachment on wild lands inhibits the natural comeback - the answer is sensible clearance or forestry practices. Please also remember that so- cal’s wildfires are in chapparal areas - it’s all brush there, so what would you clear?
What’s their average age? Is it going up?
Perhaps “firefighter” is an aging demographic?
The houses.
I have heard many people say firefighters shouldn’t die protecting forests - however, they are the lungs of our planet
Have any similar studies been done on overworked interns in emergency rooms?
Unless you’re wearing scuba gear or a NASA suit, you’re going to get at least a little of the air poison into your system. A good carbon filter mask will protect you from a lot of it, but anybody who has worn one of them for weeks on end will know there is a love/hate relationship with them. You will daydream about taking a drink of honest air.
There will be lung damage, doses of unwholesome residue in the bloodstream… I wonder at the very least if firefighters take vitamin e to buffer lungs and do chelation therapy to get the poisons out of their systems.
I got some liver overload from burning lead based paint off a house (even with a mask) and the damage, pain, delayed reflexes, metabolism-induced anger, lingered for the better part of a year.
It’s horrific to think about what this does to their bodies. Tour riders have complications such a increased stress hormone levels, reduced glycogen capacity, drops in hemoglobin, and increased free radicals. It seems reasonable that firefighters might experience the same.
My guess is that they will find that the length of time on the line should be significantly reduced. To safeguard their health, we probably need a significant increased in our fire-fighting force. That, of course, is in conflict with our national policy of valuing nothing except for CEO incomes.
That’s right.
We apparently have no second team to replace them either.
A fire fighter in a major city might spend the majority of worktime ready, but waiting.
I wouldn’t know the numbers, but forest fire fighters might be spending (say) 2 or 3 times as much time nose to nose with fire as average fire fighter. With the heat and drought, the fire season might go on for 4 months.
The human body cannot do this for an extended period of time w/o diminished function.
I absolutely agree. But the Forest Service is paying way more money for fire suppression than it is for habitat restoration and rehabilitation. They’re putting out fires that need to burn to periodically renew fresh plant growth, then walking away from the extinguished fires without doing anything about runoff, erosion, replanting, etc. The policy is visually compelling but ecologically disastrous.
And they keep letting people build in areas that have a long history of burn/regrowth, and those people act surprised and hurt when their paradise away from civilization turns out to be wild. Just like people who build waterfront houses then get subsidized flood insurance to keep building after hurricanes wipe them out. At some point we have to say bad judgment has consequences.
This is the part that (imo) is crucial. But it’s not bad judgement, it’s systemic corruption. The people who buy do so because they know there’s insurance and/or fire suppression. The developers buy low, lobby for public assumption of the risks, and then sell high.