Every time a firefighter goes to serve their community, they face additional risks to their health. 

"Our gear is heavily contaminated," said Fire Protection Specialist Tim Graves. "Lots and lots of carcinogens, lots and lots of chemicals." 

“When firefighters crawl in a burning building and through the smoke, they’re crawling in a toxic soup and many of those chemicals are known to cause cancer," said State Fire Administrator James Cable.

What You Need To Know

  • January is Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month

  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports cancer to be the leading cause of death among firefighters

  • The state's Office of Fire Prevention and Control is providing decontamination kits for New York fire departments to help lower the risk of cancer for firefighters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports cancer to be the leading cause of death among firefighters. 

“Unfortunately, anyone in the fire service within arms reach could touch a firefighter that has been affected by cancer,” Graves says. 

That's why the state's Office of Fire Prevention and Control is launching a new statewide initiative teaching firefighters how to help prevent their risk of cancer for Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month. 

"Our goal is to provide a simple decontamination kit to every fire department in the state,” Cable claims. 

The kits are filled with garden hoses, five-gallon pails, brushes, soaps and wipes to help clean the soot from fires off of firefighters at the scene. 

"The first thing you're going to do is get your to go over and with a low-pressure garden hose. You’re just going to be sprayed from your neck down," Graves explains. "Then a firefighter will use dawn dish soap and water and spray the firefighter down and then scrub with a soft bridle from that next all the way down the gloves and the boots. And then that firefighter will be sprayed down again with water that'll knock off about 80 to 85% of the contamination that's on that gear.”

That's followed by wiping their faces and repeating the process for the firefighter's helmets, tools and equipment. 

Lastly, the firefighters bag their rinsed gear on the scene to prevent leftover residues from cross-contaminating other materials and then bring it back to the fire station to be properly cleaned and dried. 

“It’s not perfect," Cable admits, "but the goal is to be better, right? How do we reduce that risk and ultimately reduce the exposure overall?” 

The state’s Office of Fire Prevention and Control says it is expecting Gov. Kathy Hochul to announce her support for the statewide initiative delivering decontamination kits to the nearly 800 fire departments across New York.   

The initiative started in Ontario County on Tuesday night and is heading to Erie County on Wednesday. It moves on to Albany next week.