VIDEO/PHOTOS: Occupational cancer is the number one killer of firefighters, according to the International Association of Firefighters (IAF). For Sweet Home Fire District (SHFD), where they’ve had several cardiac illnesses and cancer surface among their firefighters, a new federal grant will help catch these health issues earlier.
SHFD now has the money it needs to help stop line of duty deaths thanks to a 126,857 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The Assistance to Firefighters Grant was approved in September and now, for the first time, the district’s 74 firefighters will receive physicals and cancer screenings that are National Fire Protection Association compliant. The fire district’s goal is to target life-threatening conditions like cardiac risks and cancer in firefighters early.
“My job is to make sure that my firefighters go home every day to their families and it’s one thing to be the incident commander on a fire and make the right decisions to get them out of that fire but in the long run they’re exposed to a lot of things that I can’t prevent and so to know that we have this as a way to find those things and hopefully take care of them. That’s a big deal,” said Battalion Chief Shannon Pettner, Sweet Home Fire District.
