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January was the International Association of Fire Fighters’ (IAFF) Fire Fighter Cancer Awareness Month. WorkSafe Saskatchewan has launched a new video series to help firefighters better protect themselves.
Firefighter cancer is the second leading cause of work-related occupational disease deaths in Saskatchewan. In 2020, five firefighters lost their lives to cancer.
Saskatchewan has over 7,000 full-time and volunteer firefighters in communities throughout the province.
The IAFF reports that in the five-year span of 2015-2020, 75 per cent of the fire fighters added to their fallen fire fighter memorial had died of occupational cancer. Twenty-three per cent of work-related occupational disease deaths in Saskatchewan between 2010 and 2018 were firefighter cancers.
On Jan. 31, WorkSafe Saskatchewan held an event to launch their video series. Speakers included Gord Dobrowolsky, chair of the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board; Don Morgan, Minister of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety; Mike Kwasnica, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs; and others representing firefighters across Saskatchewan.
“We train and train and train in case there’s a fire,” said Doug Lapchuk, president of the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association. “There is no training in case there’s a cancer. The only thing you can do is be proactive, and be very diligent in the steps that you take.”
The WorkSafe Sask videos and resources to help prevent firefighter cancers can be found at www.worksafesask.ca/prevention/environmental-risks/firefighter-cancer-prevention.
“We want to make sure and provide them whatever it is that we can,” said Mike Kwasnica, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs, “whether that be education or equipment and training, to be able to go home at the end of the day and have a life with your family at the end of this career, because that’s what it’s all about. Once we’re done doing what we’re doing, it’s all about your family and going home to them.”
