Firefighters effluent exposures

Conference notes the outstanding work completed by the University of Central Lancashire and Professor Anna Stec in the area of helping protect our Members against the long-term health effects of repeated exposures to toxic fire effluents.

In line with the recommendations made in the interim best practice report for ‘Minimising firefighters’ exposure to toxic fire effluents’, Conference instructs the Executive Council (EC) to continue to work towards bringing all of the recommendations made in this report into practice across the UK.

Conference instructs the EC to progress the following recommendations as soon as possible;

• to work towards cancer and other illnesses being recognised as occupational hazards within Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs)
• to work towards all FRSs being required to monitor toxic fire effluent exposures across all of their staff
• to work towards a national policy of enhanced cancer screening for all operational personnel within FRSs once they have served a set number of years or, where suitable monitoring exists, where they have been recorded as having a set number of toxic fire effluent exposures.