A publication dedicated to the well-being of firefighters across North America and beyond.
I turned 50 last year and recently hit the 30-year mark in my fire service journey. Lately, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my life and career. It has been an amazing ride, but I certainly recognize the physical, mental, and emotional toll that this job has taken on me over the last three decades.
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Physical fitness facilities are a no-brainer for the fire services. Not only are firefighters expected to be physically fit but need to be athletes to perform on-the-job functions in a manner that is expected by the public.
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As far as I can tell, Father Time is undefeated, but it doesn't need to be a blowout. What do I mean by this? It means living life on your own terms for as long as you possibly can should be a priority. Until it's difficult to do them it's easy to take the mundane activities of daily living for granted, like clipping your toenails, putting a 20lb carry-on in the overhead bin or running to catch a bus. Not to mention the things you really want to do, like playing recreational sports or playing on the floor with a young child.
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Have you heard anyone call firefighters athletes? I have! I have used the term "Industrial Athletes" to describe the men and women in the fire service.
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If you have been a firefighter for more than a minute you know you face an increased risk of a cancer diagnosis due to the exposure to carcinogens you will receive during your fire service career. Even if you follow all the recommended actions during your career to reduce your risk, the unfortunate reality is you can do everything right and still get cancer.
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As first responders, we often talk about depression, anxiety, and PTSD, conditions fairly common within our profession. Given the stressors of our job, a high incidence isn’t surprising.
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As a species, our brains have kept us safe from predators, rival tribes, dangerous situations, and the environment for generations through our sympathetic nervous system and the fight, flight or freeze response. We are attuned at a very primal level to sensing danger and being ever watchful for it. We are even able to deal with very stressful situations, process these, move from fight, flight and freeze and then regulate, through homeostasis back to our rest and digest state. But something happened to us along the way.
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There’s an overload of information about nutrition and figuring out what’s true can be very challenging. I could fill multiple pages with nutrition myths that are floating around, but I will go over my top four!
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Not so long ago, keeping your health in top shape was generally a matter of doing your day-to-day work. Most people had manual labor jobs that involved a lot of physical activity and they slept well at night simply because they were tired. There were no electronic devices to keep them sedentary or disturb their sleep. Pre-packaged processed food didn’t exist and food was either grown on their own properties or traded with neighbors.
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“In a fire, you can plan everything out to the minute, and a minute before that, everything changes,” says Dan Felix. Indeed, the repercussions of being exposed to the fire are something every firefighter is aware of, yet he remains undeterred. Whilst I continue to stay in nothing but awe and gratitude to our heroes, let’s take a look into what exactly happens when you get exposed to radiant heat from the blazing fires.
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