‘These were friends of mine’: Firefighters reflect on job risks during Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month

January is Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month. In the past 10 years, Calgary Fire lost 26 members due to occupational cancer.

Cancer. A word that no one wants to hear, but it’s a reality many firefighters face.

Out in the community, some may not have it, but they know someone who does as it accounts for 75 per cent of firefighter deaths.

“Some of these were friends of mine, leaders of mine, so this is a very emotional wall for us,” said Codey Mcintyre, president of the Calgary Firefighters Association, as he looked upon the wall outside City Hall with a full list of Calgary’s Fallen Firefighters.

Mcintyre says cancer doesn’t always appear in the form of a big blaze — it’s what’s inside the burning building that’s most deadly.

“When we’re responding to a residential fire, we’re seeing 250 carcinogens that affect our firefighters.”

Carcinogens from your couch, coffee table, and fridge. Although they have protective equipment, these dangerous toxins still seep through their skin.

High cancer rates are just one of the reasons why Calgary firefighters are advocating for additional funding in the city’s four-year budget cycle.

“Sadly we’re losing people now to more insidious, long-term conditions,” said Calgary Fire Chief Steve Dongworth during an annual memorial last year. “We’ve always known that many of our colleagues, as they retire, don’t live as long as others. A lot of research has been done over the past 20 or 30 years that’s really associated certain specific cancers with firefighting.”

With this risk becoming more widely known, Dongworth said they are continuing to take steps to improve safety such as by ensuring crews have the best gear available and making regular medical examinations available. In addition, they ensure training is kept up to date so firefighters are safe at scenes so they can avoid tragedies through incidents such as a floor collapsing.

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Even before the pandemic began, they were operating at lower levels making for a greater risk of being exposed to dangerous toxins.

“You see Edmonton, you see Vancouver, you see Toronto. They run their secondary apparatus with four firefighters on those apparatus’. We here in Calgary run it with two,” he explained.

This Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month, Mcintyre emphasizes that more staff and resources will help firefighters do their job quicker with less exposure to dangerous toxins.

A total of 58 firefighters have died within the Calgary Fire Department since its inception in 1885 as the Calgary Hook, Ladder and Bucket Corps. The first death on duty was in 1923, when 28-year-old Hugh McShane passed away following a traffic accident when he was taking a fire truck back to the station after a scene call.

A full list of Calgary firefighters who have passed from the dangers of firefighting can be found here.

– With files from Tom Ross