Physiological & Contaminant Monitoring Study

Summary

Fire fighters and fire instructors go through considerable physiological stress when exposed to fire. In the short term, physiological increases in core temperature and heart rate are seen alongside inflammation and suppressed immune function. Long term exposure to fires is not clearly understood. Previous work has shown that long term heat exposure reduces immune function and causes inflammation and heart injury. While repeated exposure to smoke has been shown to raise contaminant levels, which are likely to increase cancer risk.

However, previous work has not investigated in combination the physiological stress, immune suppression, inflammation and contamination of fire service personnel over acute or long term exposure. Nor has it considered the issue of exposure amounts or fire types in simulated or real fires. This work aims to consider these issues in a large UK fire fighter and fire instructor population to show the acute and chronic impact of fire exposure on health.

This work will finally address a number of monitoring, workload and contaminant exposure questions regularly posed by fire services nationally and internationally. This will feed into end-user friendly documentation to support future working guidance on these issues.

Main Outcome of the Study

To measure and record the physiological, immunological, inflammatory and contaminant risk of acute and chronic fire exposure on firefighter and instructors.

Secondary Outcome of the Study

To understand the acute and chronic health risks such as cancer risk, cardiovascular health, of UK fire service personnel, with consideration to levels of exposure, types of exposure and working practices to reduce risk.

Advancements of knowledge and utilisation

· It is highly likely that in the next 5 years all fire personnel undertaking hot wears will be physiological monitored. However, at present there is no realistic or cost feasible method of achieving this and implementation plan in place. Further, there is no understanding of what the data means and how to use it. This project will show how individuals respond to exposures, but more importantly collate feedback on use to understand and develop effective implementation methods. From the large set of physiological data we can then create physiological limits or levels for single or repeated exposures. Likewise, we can offer guidance on physiological assessment for recovery and subsequent re-entry to large scale fires.

· For fire instructors we expect the project to demonstrate the health risks of chronic ‘over’ exposure in some individuals, as implied by our previous work (Watt et al. 2016). This will support the need for workload considerations by training centres for BA Instructors.

· By assessing contamination caused at every exposure and the characteristics of that exposure, the project will help evidence the exposure to contaminants of UK fire personnel in different fire types and working practices to help drive policies for consideration of exposure and decontamination processes.

Outputs

To ensure the project reaches and can be effectively utilised by the end user, the following documentation and user-friendly guidance will be produced:

· guidance report for implementation of findings

· nationally held presentation on study findings

· filmed presentation for wider dissemination

· peer-reviewed publication.