Thursday Thirteen

January is National Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month. Given what California just experienced, with miles of Los Angeles burned to the ground, and the fact that I'm married to a retired firefighter, this is an important issue. Here are some facts about this:

1. Occupational cancer is the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths among firefighters.

2. Firefighters are twice as likely to develop certain types of cancer compared to the general population. Firefighters face a 9% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and a 14% higher risk of dying from cancer compared to the general U.S. population.

3. Seventy-five percent of line-of-duty deaths among International Association of Firefighter (IAFF) members in 2024 were attributed to occupational cancer.

4. Firefighters are exposed to multiple cancer-causing agents on the job. Asbestos, a hazardous material found in older buildings, is a significant risk factor for firefighters.

5. Firefighters are two times more likely to develop mesothelioma than the general U.S. population.

6. Aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), used by firefighters, contains dangerous chemicals known as PFAS. PFAS can build up in the body over time and cause various types of cancer.

7. Sixty-eight percent of firefighters develop cancer compared to just 22% in the general population.

8. Skin melanoma, prostate cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma are among the cancers firefighters are at higher risk of developing.

9. The Firefighter Cancer Support Network (FCSN) provides vital education and resources to combat occupational cancer.

10. Presumptive laws in Canada attribute close to 94% of line-of-duty deaths among professional firefighters to occupational cancers.

11. The IAFF designates January as Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month to provide tools and guidance for cancer prevention. Behavioral health is a key focus during Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month. Weekly themes during the month include topics like reproductive health, cancer prevention, and survivorship. Training briefs and resources are provided to educate firefighters on reducing cancer risks.

12. One of the goals of Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month is to bring increased public awareness to occupational cancer in the fire service.

13. Firefighters' protective gear can sometimes trap harmful chemicals close to their skin, increasing their risk of cancer. Regular decontamination and proper maintenance of gear are crucial to minimize this risk.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 889th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Remember the 343

Twenty-two years ago today, over 1,000 men and women, all of them dressed in 50 to 75 pounds of firefighting gear, faced the worst event of their careers.

The Twin Towers in New York City had been attacked and were burning.

At 8:50 a.m., the New York City Fire Department had established its incident command center at the World Trade Centers. The first plane hit one of the Trade Centers at 8:45 a.m.; the response was immediate. The fire department was on the scene within five minutes.

Even though a second plane hit the other tower, these brave firefighters hustled inside while everyone else was doing their best to get outside.

They were saving lives, these folks. They were doing what they were trained to do.

What they loved to do.

What they would die doing.

At 9:59 a.m., the first of the tallest towers of the World Trade Center collapsed. The firefighters who were valiantly trying to reach people believed to be trapped on upper floors, were unable to get out. As those of us who sat watching the events unfold on TV know, the collapse occurred without warning. The buildings were down before anyone could react.

And 343 firefighters died, along with over 2,000 other people. In a documentary about 9/11 that I watched one year, the most haunting sound for me was when the surviving firefighters went back to look for their brothers and sisters. It was not the tears or the shouts of names, but the oxygen alarms going off from the firefighters' gear, that brought me to tears. Those alarms meant death. And there were so many of them.

As the wife of a retired firefighter, I knew when my husband was at work that every day could be the day that things went wrong on the fire scene. Any day could have been the day that a building exploded, a roof caved in, a car crashed into firefighters standing on the side of the road putting out a burning vehicle (something that happened in Roanoke in 1985, killing several firefighters).

First responders do a job that most people wouldn't dream of doing.

They risk their lives every single time they go to work. When we are running away in fear, they are putting on their hats and heading off to face down whatever it is we are afraid of. Tornadoes, hurricanes, fire, flood, derecho winds, downed power lines or a terrorist attack do not halt these dedicated people. They go forward when the rest of us would hang back.

On this anniversary of the attack on New York City, please remember the sacrifices of these brave men and women, the firefighters who go where no one dares to go.

You might want to say thank you to them, too. You never know when the life they save might be yours.

The Legend

While we were visiting the Virginia Fire Museum Saturday, my husband saw two trucks that he was quite familiar with.

One was not being displayed, but he recognized the rear end of it immediately. It is a type of fire truck called a Quint. A Quint served as a pumper and as a ladder truck.

My husband hated it. I can remember hearing him fuss about that truck as if it were yesterday instead of 1995. He said it was absolutely useless on a fire scene.

My man reviewing the Quint he used to ride on at Station 13.

The other truck, though, was Ladder 1. This was a "real" ladder truck, one that bent in the middle and had a driver in the rear.

This was a truck he loved.

My husband rode this piece of firefighting equipment. In fact, he was on the committee that designed it and was instrumental in its setup.

I'm not sure how my husband fit in that tiny little place in the back.

While we were looking at the truck, my husband struck up a conversation with one of the men helping with the museum. He told him his name, and the fellow said, "Oh, I know who you are. You're a legend at the city."

My husband has never given himself much credit for the work he did at the fire department. It was an enormous job, being a firefighter. He saved people during floods, he worked car wrecks, he put out fires, he saw things people shouldn't ever see. He rose from the bottom of the ranks to Battalion Chief, and I was ever so proud of him with each promotion. He took his role as mentor to the younger firefighters seriously, setting aside time to help them train and learn. He knew where his people were on the fire scene at all times; he never did simply "surround, drown, and burn 'em down," - his people actually put the fires out and saved people and property. They knew they were expected to do their jobs when Battalion 2 was on scene.

I was thrilled to hear someone call him a "legend" at the city fire department. I know he is highly thought of, and he left on good terms. When he hurt himself on the farm in 2014, I had to ask to the nursing staff to keep the firefighters out of the room so he could rest after his surgeries on his hand. Nearly every one of them who brought a patient to the ER wanted to come in and see how Chief was doing.

He's been retired now for three years (I can't believe it's been that long.).

They still call him Chief when they see him. Sometimes they call. "Can I talk to Chief?" they will say.

It always makes me smile.

He is a legend. They don't make them like him anymore.

Virginia Fire Museum

Saturday, we ventured off to the open house of the Virginia Fire Museum in Roanoke to see what we could see.

This is a start-up that has not yet found its footing. The collection of about 80 fire engines is significant, but not exactly historical. Two of the pieces from the City of Roanoke were purchased when my husband was working - he helped design the specs for one of them.

They have a few antiques but a lot of it is simply worn-out firetrucks. They will be antiques in a few years, though, and I know they mean something to the firefighters who used the equipment. So, I am glad these people have stepped up to save them.

Since this is state-wide, there are firetrucks from all over. I like that it doesn't simply focus on one area of the state. There have been many little fire stations, most volunteer, that have been filled with generous men and women who have wanted to serve their communities.

I'm not sure the location for the museum is the best (they're in an old warehouse that's been vacant for years) and the walking in the warehouse was difficult as the floor was covered with oil, and there was no clean walking space. I can't imagine how many kids (and parents) tracked oil into their house after visiting the exhibits.

But this is in its infancy, and I feel sure that in a few years, things will look spiffy and shiny. Time helps, as does money and awareness. I don't think a lot of people know this is going on, this saving of old fire apparatus. I hope they get a donation button on their website so people can easily send them $25 every now and then.

Here are some of the old trucks:

A quick word about the Oren trucks. Those were made locally, in nearby Vinton. Oren was purchased in 1976 by Grumman. The Oren name eventually disappeared, and has been, for all intents and purposes, replaced by KME, which moved most of its operations to Pennsylvania.

About Firefighters

My husband was lucky. We were lucky.

During his 38 years on the job as a firefighter, he only experienced two deaths related to his job. That was in 1985, two years after he'd become a firefighter. Captain Robert G. Cassell and Firefighter Harvey H. Helm died on November 1, 1985, from injuries received from a hit-and-run driver while responding to an automobile fire on Shenandoah Avenue.

Yesterday, three firefighters died in a vacant apartment fire in Baltimore, MD. I mourn for them and their families. Firefighters are not all honorable people, but they perform an honorable job. It's a job not everyone can do.

That could have been my husband, lost in a fire before he retired. It could have been any of his friends, the people he worked with, who fell while working their job. I remember how upset my husband was over the deaths of Cassell and Helm. Senseless and tragic deaths.

I have often wondered about priorities in this country (and others). We pay someone millions to carry a ball 100 yards down a field, or bat a ball beyond three bases, or put a big round orange ball in a basket.

We expect a firefighter to race into a burning building to save a person or a cat, and work for hours in bone-chilling cold or 110-degree heat to put out a fire and then we pay them $40,000 a year (my husband's starting salary in 1983 was $13,000 annually). That has always seemed to me to be strange priorities. A straw man argument, perhaps? Entertainment, after all, is not the equivalence of saving a life.

Entertainment is apparently worth much more than saving a life in a capitalistic society. Or losing a life, as sometimes happens in these dangerous and terribly underpaid jobs.

The same can be said for many of our day-to-day jobs. Entertainment is worth more than teaching our children, or helping us with our groceries, or making sure we are served without spit in our food in a restaurant.

We must be entertained above all else.

My husband and I knew he had a dangerous job. We tried hard never to have him leave for work with us fighting, having said upsetting things to one another. I simply didn't know from day to day if he would come home to me, and I didn't want the last thing I said to him to have been something negative. I worried about him, but I pretended he was at the fire station performing cleaning chores, or playing cards with the guys after hours, while they waited on the bell to ring. I worried more on those evenings when we were on the phone saying goodnight to one another and the bell went off and I knew he was on a run than I did when I didn't know. When that happened, he always called me back when he returned, even if it was hours later.

He knew I would still be awake, waiting on the phone call.

Being a firefighter's wife is hard work, too. It is a life of endless worry, of missed holidays, Christmases held on off days instead of the "right" day, delayed family get-togethers. It meant fixing the broken water heater myself, or at least knowing how to cut the thing off, because things nearly always went bad while he was at work on a 24-hour shift and would not be home until the next morning. It meant sleeping alone in my bed, even if I was sick or recently released from the hospital and probably should have had someone with me. It meant ironing his uniforms (until they went to some material that wouldn't iron) and keeping the house going even though I also worked and went to college at the same time, all while fighting constant illness.

Being a firefighter is a tough and valuable job. We seem to have forgotten how we came to have professional fire departments in the first place. It's because we had entire blocks go up in flames because volunteers could not put out the flames. It's because of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, where 146 young women perished in a fire. It's because even Rome some 2000 years ago realized that fire was dangerous, and things burned, and people died. And it's because saving other people's lives from a deadly flame is the moral and proper thing to do in a civilized society.

Mourn the firefighters in Baltimore. Remember the 343 firefighters who died on 9/11. Think about the greatness they do for very little reward. Would you do it?

They are the quiet heroes, living quiet lives.

Bless them. And maybe wonder why saving lives is worth so much less than tossing around a ball or appearing on a TV show, mouth open, hatred spewing out.

Boots

 

The first time I saw my husband's firefighter's boots laid out beside the door of the fire engine, I teared up. I never liked to think about him out on a call. I preferred to think about him waiting, like his boots.

That was a long time ago, and the firefighters still have their boots and gear at the ready, sitting by the door of the fire truck. I took this shot on August 10, when my husband was having his retirement farewell at Station #5.

The boots by the truck make it very real how fast and efficient these men are as they dash into danger to save a home or a life. 

May the Universe bless all of those who fill these boots in times of need,

Remembering the 343

 

For the 343 firefighters who died on 09/11/2001 in New York City.

 

Firefighters do a job that most people wouldn't dream of doing. They risk their lives every single time they go to work. When you are running away in fear, they are putting on their hats and heading off to face down whatever it is you are afraid of. Tornadoes, hurricanes, fire, flood, derecho winds, downed power lines or a terrorist attack do not halt these dedicated people. They go forward when the rest of us would hang back.

Like other public servants, emergency service workers have been attacked by various political sectors in recent years. How anyone can deny these brave men and women a livelihood in exchange for running into a burning structure is beyond me.

On this anniversary of the attack on New York City, please remember the sacrifices of firefighters and other emergency services workers. They go where no one else dares to go.

You might want to say thank you to them, too. You never know when the life they save might be yours.

Thursday Thirteen #360

I am the wife of a firefighter. These people go out every day and risk their lives to save people. When you are running away in fear of your life, these people are running in to help you. Whether it's flood, tornado, fire, hurricane, downed powerlines, or a sore toe, when you call 911, these people come.

Today's Thursday Thirteen offers up some numbers. I think you'll see why I have given you these today.  The numbers pertain to the United States and the first sets of numbers were tabulated in 2009.

1. 3,010 - the number of deaths by fire

2. 1,348,500 - the number of fires


3. 17,050 - the number of civilian injuries caused by fire


4. $12,531,000,000 ($12.5 billion) - property loss by fire

5. 26,534,000 - the total number of calls to 911 for assistance

6. 50 - the average weight of a firefighter's gear (helmet, coat, boots, gloves)

7. 25 - the average weight of a firefighters SCBA gear (oxygen, breathing mask)

8. 75 - the average weight in pounds that a firefighter carries when rushing into a burning building

9. 24 - 30 - the average length in feet of a fire truck

10.  107 - the number of floors in New York City's World Trade Center's largest building



11. 8:50 a.m. on 09/11/2001 - the time an incident command was established by firefighters after a plane flew into the World Trade Center building. The first plane hit at 8:45 a.m.; firefighters were on the scene and entering the building within five minutes of the attack.

12. 9:59 a.m. on 09/11/2001 - the time the first building collapsed at the World Trade Center

13. 343 - the number of firefighters who lost their lives when both towers collapsed on 09/11/2001.

On the anniversary of the 09/11/2001 attack on New York City, please remember the sacrifices of these brave men and women.

Thank you.




Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 360th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.