AURORA, Colo. — Aurora Fire Rescue (AFR) is serving its firefighters in a new way. With a $420,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program , AFR said it'll begin cancer screening on all its personnel.
"This is a significant grant to focus on our members," said Allen Robnett, AFR deputy chief. Robnett said there are the obvious dangers firefighters encounter every day, but there are also threats to your health no one can see. "Some things we’re carrying with us, we don’t know," Robnett said.
"We’ve picked [it] up on the scene, and we don’t know about it. And years and years and years down the road, we have a contamination, or you get cancer or cardiovascular disease that you didn’t know when you were on that scene was going to be a hazard." Robnett said the department does what it can to mitigate the spread of carcinogens when firefighters return from a call for service.
"They’re off gassing whatever environment they were contaminated in," Robnett explained. "So we have the ventilation that sucks that out and sends it to the outside air." Robnett said he's worked with the department for 35 years.
When he was first starting out, treatment of uniforms and gear looked different. "There was a time when all the bunkers were outside in the bay along the wall so anytime the engine fired up, they got charged up again with exhaust," Robnett said. "There was a time we would sleep next to our bunkers in our beds.
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