Firefighters face many unseen risks on the job

Firefighters often put themselves in harm’s way to protect others.

Whether it’s running into a burning building or assisting motorists on highways, the perils of firefighting are obvious. However, area chiefs say there are other unseen risks related to fire service.

Fire Chief Bob Dunn with the Saline Valley Fire Protection District said it’s a firefighter’s job to do “whatever it takes to help people.”

“Our job is to save people’s lives,” he added.

As part of their work, firefighters experience traumatic calls on a near-daily basis, which can stick with them for years and result in both physical and mental health problems, said Hillsboro Fire Protection District Chief Brian Gaudet.

Studies show that those who make a career of firefighting may face long-lasting negative effects, including mental health issues and an increased risk of cancer.

A 2022 study from the Ruderman Foundation found the suicide rate for firefighters is 18 per 100,000, compared to the general public’s 13 per 100,000.

Cancer is a leading cause of death for firefighters, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, with those in the fire service at a 14 percent higher risk of dying from cancer than the general population.

Many firefighters leave the service due to cancer diagnoses or die a few years into retirement due to cancer, said Eureka Fire Protection District Chief Greg Brown, who serves as chair of the Missouri Fire Fighters Critical Illness Pool (MFFCIP).

MFFCIP helps patients cover out-of-pocket expenses for cancers normally excluded in workers’ compensation but found to be abnormally high in firefighters.

“It’s a great profession,” Brown said. “There are great things that happen by some very brave men and women out there, but we’ve got to have their back, too.”

Physical health risks

Joseph Depaepe, pool administrator for MFFCIP, said some of the top risks for firefighters are heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, on-the-job injury and stress.

He said the pool works to spread information about prevention and early detection to firefighters throughout the state.

Brown, along with chiefs from across the state, put together the pool in 2021 to get cancer recognized as an occupational injury for firefighters in the state.

Despite opposition from the insurance industry, legislation was approved in 2022 and a coalition of fire agencies and insurance providers was formed, Brown said.

Firefighters in the agencies that belong to the pool are eligible for payments if they are diagnosed with 17 cancers commonly linked to working in the fire services.

Brown said the pool pays the person directly.

“It’s not paying medical bills; it’s paid out every two weeks until the amount is paid, and part of the reason why we did it like that is they can use it for whatever they need, whether it’s making sure the house payments are made or paying out of pocket medical expenses,” he said.

About 3,800 firefighters from 115 agencies in the state are in the pool, Brown said.

Since the pool’s creation two years ago, there have been 31 reported cases of cancer, and 26 were covered, he said.

When firefighters enter a burning building, search through debris or investigate scenes, they may be exposed to carcinogenic materials.

Modern building and furnishing materials increase cancer risk, said Rock Community Fire Protection District Chief Kevin Wingbermuehle, adding that many of today’s homes or furniture are not made with all-natural wood materials like in the past.

Wingbermuehle said thousands of chemicals are used “in a simple piece of furniture,” and when the furniture burns, gases are released faster and burn hotter.

“There are more polymers, plastics and synthetics (in furniture),” said Antonia Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Bobby Chrisco. “If you light your grandma’s couch on fire outside and you light a modern couch, the modern couch burns four times hotter and four times as fast.”

Dunn said his district pays into MFFCIP and implements the pool’s policies at its stations. Firefighters must participate in annual health screenings, with specific blood screenings to test for cancer.

Based on MFFCIP policy, Eureka firefighters have two sets of gear.

When crews return to the station from a fire, he said, the firefighters must shower immediately and put on clean gear. The old, contaminated gear is cleaned in special industrial-sized washers. All gear is kept in a separate room from living quarters and has a unique ventilation system.

Saline Valley Fire uses the same policies.

“Any house fire is a petri dish of chemicals that are going up in the smoke,” Dunn said. “It is not that you are inhaling it; our SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) takes care of that. It is that it sticks to your skin. The quicker you can shower and get it off, the better.”

Gaudet said even a firefighter’s protective gear can become carcinogenic if heated to a certain temperature. Cancer-causing chemicals called per-fluoroalkyl and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been found in firefighting gear.

“Sometimes our turnout gear is working against us as well when it comes to cancer prevention,” Gaudet said. “Unfortunately, anymore it comes with the territory of being a firefighter. It’s not a laughing matter at all, but it’s seriously to the point where we all expect at some point in our lives, we’re all going to get cancer. It’s a sad reality that we have to almost expect it.”

Brown, 59, who joined the fire service as a junior firefighter at 16, said it used to be seen as a kind of “badge of honor” to wear dirty gear because it showed the hard work a firefighter put into protecting the community.

“Essentially, we need to change that culture,” Brown said. “I’ve seen firefighters who’ve gotten cancer, and while some of them have survived, most of them haven’t.”

Mental health risks

The culture around mental well-being is changing in the firehouse, too, Gaudet said.

Many firefighters used to “bottle up” their thoughts and feelings about what they saw on the job, leading to disastrous effects on mental health.

“We’re an all-hazards emergency response entity,” Gaudet said. “You’re talking about somebody with a 30-year career in the fire service seeing hundreds and hundreds of incidents that nobody can even imagine.

“It’s not just necessarily a one-time incident that may, you know, trigger some issues. It’s the repeated exposure to various traumatic events that firefighters see throughout their career that is really an issue.”

Brown said MFFCIP has begun developing best practices for mental well-being for participating agencies to use.

Gaudet said his firefighters have access to resources through the mental health resource network ASPEN, and through the Missouri Fire Chaplains Corps. Peer support groups are also available through the International Association of Fire Fighters Union.

Above all, a station’s crew and administrative staff need to support one another, Gaudet said.

“I think at the end of the day, some of the best medicine is just after the call, we’ll try to discuss what happened, what we’ve seen and how we feel about it, and ensuring that everybody here at the local level is doing OK and just taking care of our folks,” Gaudet said. “We are a family. We must take care of each other, and we must look out for each other.”

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Chaplains offer firefighters someone to lean on

By Teresa Inserra

Chaplains play an important role at area fire districts and departments, helping firefighters deal with the stress of the job and helping people who just received terrible news.

Gary Boyer, 53, of Hillsboro – a pastor at Christ’s Church of Hillsboro and a funeral director at Robert Brown Chapel, which recently merged with Chapel Hill Mortuary – said he has been involved in fire service for 25 years.

For the past 11 years, he has volunteered as a fire chaplain, and he’s a critical incident responder, which means he responds to a variety of calls for help in the greater Hillsboro area, ranging from house fires to deaths.

Suicide calls are the hardest calls, Boyer said, adding that emergencies involving children are difficult, too.

“Sometimes all you can do is just sit there and be there for (the family),” he said. “There’s something called the ministry of presence where … if they want to talk, they talk. If they don’t, they don’t, but they know somebody’s there. A lot of people don’t have anybody right there initially. They walk in and find their husband deceased or their child deceased and they are at home by themselves.”

Some people keep in touch with Boyer after he responds to a call.

“You don’t realize who you touch and how much it makes a big difference in their lives. I cherish that,” he said. “No amount of money ever could give you that. That’s why I just do it for free.”

Boyer also speaks to firefighters struggling with the job or in their personal lives.

The conversations are kept confidential, he said.

Boyer said he is trained as a chaplain but he is not a counselor. When counseling is needed, he refers people to the appropriate counselors, including those who specialize in helping first responders.

If a firefighter is hurt at the scene, Boyer said he will go to the hospital to see what he can help with. Likewise, if he hears a firefighter’s family member is hurt, he often checks on that person.

Rock Fire chaplain juggles roles

Bryan Menke, 55, of Arnold serves multiple roles with the Rock Community Fire Protection District. He’s a captain, and he volunteers as a chaplain and serves as a member of the St. Louis Critical Incident Stress Management Team.

“Sometimes my roles kind of blend from one to the other,” said Menke, who has been a chaplain for 16 years.

Menke said he responds to scenes where a tragedy has occurred and tries to provide people with emotional and spiritual support while they make difficult phone calls.

“It depends on the day of the week. If I’m on duty at the station, obviously my first responsibility is to handle the call itself, the situation itself,” he said. “Oftentimes, once the dust settles and things are under control, I’ll kind of slide out of that role into my chaplain role for a little bit to be with the family. But if I’m off duty, I’ll respond from home, usually in the capacity of chaplain.”

As a chaplain, Menke said he tries to monitor calls to see if firefighters may need help, like a critical incident stress debriefing or a one-on-one intervention.

He said he also tries to help firefighters who are having family problems or grieving the loss of a loved one, offering them support and pointing them to resources if needed.

When firefighters respond to particularly troubling calls, like the death of a child, the agency calls the St. Louis Critical Incident Stress Management Team for help, Menke said.

“We have a fairly large team of people comprised of mental health experts and then peers … firefighters, paramedics, police officers and chaplains. In my role on there, I’m typically filling the peer role, although my chaplain experience helps as well. We usually go out in teams of at least three: a mental health person, the fire peer and a chaplain, but it could be a bigger team depending on the size of the group.”

“They’ll call us, we’ll put a team together, come out and usually what we end up doing is a debriefing, where we sit down with them and just have an opportunity for everybody there to kind of share their experience on that call. Then we talk about how we care for ourselves following something like that, what the best practices are as far as caring for ourselves and the do’s, don’ts, that type of thing. We offer any kind of other resources they might need for follow-up.”

Menke said he advises firefighters to avoid using drugs and alcohol to deal with stress and suggests they instead disconnect from the job with something healthy they enjoy doing.

“We encourage them to find better ways of dealing with (stress) – exercise, spiritual practices, leisure activities that they enjoy, like fishing, golfing, whatever it might be,” he said. “We also talk about the importance of doing those kinds of things ahead of time, too, before the bad call happens, taking good care, eating right and exercising and all those kinds of things … to build yourself up and build some resilience in yourself before the call comes along.”

Suicide is a huge concern among first responders, Menke said.

According to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, at least 100 firefighters die by suicide each year.

“There’s been a real big push nationwide for mental health … and recognizing that we are not bulletproof,” Menke said. “We do have feelings and we do have responses to these kinds of bad calls that we run.”

He said fire agencies, groups and unions have pushed for education about mental health issues and offer resources for counseling.

Peer support is gaining momentum in bigger districts and departments, Menke aid.

“The chaplains, the peer support, the CISM team, we just work together. We all have the same goal,” he said.

Aspen offers help

Aspen Network Inc. is a nonprofit that provides another resource for first responders.

Jaclyn Brown, Aspen’s executive director, said she is passionate about fire services and mental health.

Her husband, David, is the Mapaville Fire chief, her son is a junior firefighter at De Soto Rural Fire, and she serves on the De Soto Rural Fire board of directors.

She said more first responders die by suicide than in the line of duty, and divorce rates tend to be higher for first responders.

Brown said Aspen offers a list of resources, including mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. Aspen also offers mental health screening tools for first responders, which links them to help.

The screening tool asks if a first responder wants to remain anonymous or if they want to connect with a peer support specialist or chaplain.

“If that particular department has peer support specialists or a chaplain, when they click a single button, it generates an email to those individuals on that team so they know to reach out to that person,” Brown said. “It’s just an efficient way for that peer support or chaplain to know that individual is wanting help. Because they’ve already gone through the work of answering the screening questions, it gives them an idea of where they’re really at mentally before they even talk to them. It’s similar to how we also work with schools.”

Brown said the peer support specialist or chaplain will speak with the first responder in crisis and refer the person to resources as needed.

She said there’s also a phone number chief officers may call 24 hours a day if they have someone who needs help, and Aspen will connect the person to a counselor within 24 hours.

Brown said she has seen the strain the job has had on her husband’s body and mind, adding that the work schedule is stressful for the family.

“Luckily, he does a fantastic job recognizing that and is working really hard to take care of himself. And I think becoming chief, he really recognizes the importance of mental and physical health, especially in his crews. I think he wishes that had always been the culture. He is really trying to enforce that culture in his department because he sees the value of taking care of yourself, the value of counseling and he really wants all his staff to be living a happy, healthy life.”

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Fire districts, departments continue to see more calls for service

By Tony Krausz

Each year fire protection districts and departments throughout Jefferson County and Eureka are getting more and more calls for help.

“Our call volume has been going up an average of about 10 percent a year for about the last six years,” said Eureka Fire Protection District Chief Greg Brown. “With our area (approximately 63 square miles in Eureka, Hoene Springs and portions of Wildwood and Pacific) and Jefferson County still growing, you will have more people and then call volume will go up. I think it is just something we are destined to see.”

As of August, most of the fire districts and departments in Jefferson County and Eureka appeared to be on track this year to surpass the number of calls for service they received in 2023.

• Antonia Fire responded to 886 calls through August after responding to 1,355 calls last year.
• Cedar Hill Fire responded to 906 calls through August after responding to 1,452 calls last year.
• Crystal City Fire responded to 350 calls through August after responding to 450 calls last year.
• De Soto Fire responded to 563 calls through August after responding to 811 calls last year.
• De Soto Rural Fire responded to 1,022 calls through August after responding to 1,539 calls last year.
• Dunklin Fire responded to 897 calls through August after responding to 1,351 calls last year.
• Eureka Fire responded to 2,351 calls through August after responding to 3,028 calls last year.
• Festus Fire responded to 1,024 calls through August after responding to 1,637 calls last year.
• Goldman Fire responded to 313 calls through August after responding to 480 calls last year.
• Hematite Fire responded to 523 calls through August after responding to 840 calls last year.
• Herculaneum Fire responded to 256 calls through August after responding to 517 calls last year.
• High Ridge Fire responded to 2,173 calls through August after responding to 3,100 calls last year.
• Hillsboro Fire responded to 955 calls through August after responding to 1,447 calls last year.
• Jefferson R-7 Fire responded to 550 calls through August after responding to 913 calls last year.
• Mapaville Fire responded to 283 calls through August after responding to 483 calls last year.
• Rock Fire responded to 5,400 calls through August after responding to 5,220 calls last year.
• Saline Valley Fire responded to 1,467 calls through August after responding to 2,366 calls last year.

Antonia Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Bobby Chrisco said he believes population growth is the No. 1 reason for the increased calls for service.

“Anytime the number of people increases, the possibility of an emergency to arise is going to be greater,” he said.

Saline Valley Fire Protection District Chief Bob Dunn said call volumes often rise because fire districts and departments can be a catchall for emergency situations.

“People call 911 because they need a police officer or they need someone taken to the hospital by an ambulance, and everything else, we do,” he said. “It could be a house fire, brush fire, water rescue, building collapse, trench collapse or a cat stuck in a tree. When people don’t know what to do, they call for help.”

Cedar Hill Fire Protection Chief Mick Fischer said the increased number of calls can put a strain on districts and departments.

“Many times, we find ourselves understaffed during peak times, leading to increased pressure on firefighters and impacting their ability to respond effectively,” he said. “Ensuring adequate staffing and addressing burnout through strategic scheduling and hiring practices are essential to manage call volume.”

Brown said the mutual aid fire districts and departments provide each other has become more important as calls for service continue to rise.

“If you do get a big call, it could be a mass casualty incident with 10 to 12 people hurt, you have to be able to call in your neighbors,” he said. “It could be a big fire, like a brush fire or a large structure fire. There is no single entity that handles these huge calls.

“Some of the encouraging things we see going on is regional groups putting out some standard guidelines so everyone is working together and playing out of the same playbook. It makes us more efficient.”

Chrisco said there is no single remedy to reduce calls, but fire districts and departments are always looking for ways to address problems that may contribute to emergencies that require calls for service.

“I think all departments have really focused in the last several years on community-risk reduction programs,” he said. “The first thing in doing that is to analyze call data. If we see medial calls are up, we want to know why they are up. If it is vehicle accidents, it may be a particular area that has a stoplight issue or a blind turn.”

Fire districts and departments also offer an array of public education programs to educate residents about how to reduce their risk of experiencing an emergency and how to handle those that arise.

“Public education is always a good thing, whether it is fire service related or (emergency medical services) related,” Brown said.

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