I regularly attend my local for fire council and burn as part of my work. Wildland firefighters are constantly exposed to carcinogens. There are no standard mask, and with few exceptions basically no one uses them in my state. There are no regulations on clean areas for decon or outdoor storage for contaminated grear. No one ever cleans trucks so the inside is more dangerous than the outside from an air quality perspective. Your clothes give you cancer, your boots give you cancer, the foam gives you cancer, your office gives you cancer, the work gives you cancer.

It’s extra fun if you do prescribed fire because you don’t even get the same pay grade in most orgs because it’s “safer.” The USA is truly a shithole country. I’m lucky that I do it only 12 days or so a year, instead of full time.

Do firefighters get different pants or… ?

How long until someone cancels this as DEI/Woke/not “cost effective”? It seems like this administration’s mission to ruin and cancel anything that may be beneficial, short term or long term. To quote: “I can destroy the country”.