Excerpts from the NorthwestHerald.com:

After every fire and live-fire training exercise, Huntley firefighters use a $4,700 taxpayer-funded sauna at one of the district’s three firehouses. The three Sunlighten infrared saunas were bought with money from the district’s foreign fire insurance tax fund.

The infrared sauna puts the body into a fever state, where radical cells such as cancer cannot survive. Within an hour of a fire or live fire training, Huntley firefighters complete a gross decontamination at the scene, return to the firehouse for a shower, hit the sauna, then take another shower.

For more than a year, the Huntley Fire Protection District has used saunas in hopes of sweating out cancer-causing toxins – although there is little medical research on the topic. Cancer is the leading cause of death in firefighters outside of the line of duty, surpassing heart disease, according to the International Association of Firefighters.

Before the extensive decontamination process was instituted, you could smell products of combustion at the firehouse. Now it’s rarely noticeable. “If you can smell it, you’re breathing it in,” Huntley Assistant Fire Chief Al Schlick said, adding that chemicals are very common in burning materials these days.

Firefighters admit that there is not yet a lot of science backing up what they believe are the cancer-preventing benefits of sauna use.

Huntley is one of several departments in Illinois to buy saunas for this use, and it’s the first in McHenry County. Fire departments in Indianapolis and Toronto also have them.

thanks Dan

Tags: cancer in the fire service, fire district takes aggressive stance to prevent cancer, Huntley Assistant Fire Chief Al Schlick, Huntley Fire Protection District, infrared sauna in fire station