The Yuma Fire Department takes steps to prevent firefighter cancer

A milestone was recently reached in the Yuma Fire Department’s fight against cancer.

The installation of lockers at all six neighborhood fire stations, in an area separate from other areas of the station allows fire gear to be isolated from possible contaminants.

“Having smoke on your gear and in the soot and ashes, after fires now we’ve learned through research that firefighters are chronically exposed to these products of combustion and it causes cancer,” said Chief Dusty Fields.

Cancer caused 66 percent of firefighter line-of-duty deaths from 2002 to 2019, according to the International Association of Fire Fighters.

And YFD is doing everything it can to prevent locally.

“With what we do, we definitely have a higher risk of getting cancer in some form, a lot of guys end up passing away after they retire from cancer so our screenings are a lot more critical with what we do in our career,” said Jordan Simpson, Interim Yuma Fire Captain.

This is especially important to Chief Dusty Fields as his father, also a retired Yuma Firefighter, passed away from fire induced cancer ten years after retirement.

“He died of Multiple Myeloma and so they didn’t have two sets of turnout gear, they didn’t have comprehensive physicals that the city now provides for our firefighters to catch cancer early,” said Fields.

The process of reducing cancer risks has taken the department about five years.

Each station recieved turnout lockers, specialized heavy duty washers, and extractors to remove and filter exhaust and other contaminants from the truck bay environment.

Chief Fields says this wouldn’t be possible without the Yuma City Council and administration.