Archive for April 12th, 2022

As seen around … Herscher, IL – 4/11/22

This from Central Illinois Fire Photography:

On April 11th the Pilot TWP FPD (Herscher Fire) was paged for a structure fire. Moments prior to the call, a cigarette had been discarded near an open propane canister, leading to an explosion with exposure to the home and a fence. Departments due were as follows: Herscher Fire, Limestone TWP Fire, Salina TWP Fire, Essex FPD, as well as the Reddick Community FPD.
fire scene photo #chicagoareafire.com

Central Illinois Fire Photography

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Fatal fire in Chicago, 4-12-22

Excerpts from ABC7Chicago.com:

Chicago firefighters responded around 6:50 a.m. Tuesday when smoke alarms went off in the hallway outside a third-floor studio apartment at 2322 N. Commonwealth Ave. They found a woman, in her mid-50s, in cardiac arrest and began CPR. Paramedics brought her to Saint Joseph Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The fire was contained to the studio apartment and there was no word of other displacements. There was a lot of smoke but little fire, and the blaze was extinguished quickly.

A preliminary investigation found that the cause of the fire was unattended cooking.

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Ambulance remount for the Roberts Park FPD

Found at Osage Ambulances:

Type III Remount E450 ambulance sold to Roberts Park Fire Protection District of Justice, IL

Congratulations Roberts Park Fire Protection District on your recent Type 3 E450 ambulance remount!  

This from Martin Nowak:

This one is going to Station 2. It originally started on a 2009 Ford E-series before getting re-chassied again in 2013. 

Roberts Park FPD ambulance with new chassis

Roberts Park FPD ambulance with new chassis

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Cancer in the fire service

Excerpts from 12news.com:

Cancer is the leading cause of death among firefighters, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a team of researchers in Arizona believes it might be because each fire they fight is changing how their genes work, making them more susceptible to cancer and other diseases.

Bryan Jeffries, President of the Professional Firefighters of Arizona was diagnosed with seminoma in 2019, saying that it’s the synthetic materials that are catching fire, exposing them to toxic chemicals.  Gear protects them from the heat of the fires, not from the chemicals.

Dr. Jeff Burgess and his team at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health have been trying to understand how firefighters are at such a high risk for cancers and other diseases. Their latest study, funded by FEMA, found that firefighters undergo DNA methylation, where genes change in their expression without changing their actual DNA sequence. When certain genes are turned on or off it can make people more at risk for things like cancer.

They worked with Tucson Fire Department and studied new recruits through their first few years of working, finding the more fires they went to or how long they spent fighting them added up. They found changes at 680 different places on the genome, many of those genes were related to cancers and other diseases. While it’s not clear if those specific changes will lead definitely to cancer, it’s a lead to understand exactly what does.

With the study taking place at the very beginning of a new recruit’s career, it highlights how quickly these changes happen, and how they can add up over years on the job.

While firefighters are continually working on decontamination of their gear and themselves, keeping gear exposed to the chemicals out of the cab and in a separate area of the firehouse, there’s still more that can be done with changing equipment and tactics.

The team at UArizona is already expanding the study, working with even more fire departments around the country to understand exactly what DNA methylation sites are affected in firefighters.

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