Several firefighters who responded to the deadly 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in London have been diagnosed with terminal cancers.
Close to a dozen firefighters were diagnosed with digestive cancers or leukaemia, which is the Mirror attributes to the firefighters’ work at the Grenfell fire. Many of the firefighters are in their 40s.
According to the paper, others are expected to be diagnosed in years to come.
“We are expecting some really depressing data to be revealed soon. It’s shocking,” a fire department member told the newspaper.
Firefighters depleted their SCBA breathing air and continued to work, while others wore their soot-covered turnout gear for up to 10 hours as they toiled in the 24-story high rise.
Officials said 1,300 firefighters responded worked at the Grenfell site.
In 2019, an investigation found that the soil surrounding the Grenfell site was highly contaminated and could lead to respiratory ailments and cancer.
“On a personal level it’s very worrying. I’ve got two young kids and I want to see them grow up,” said firefighter David Badillo, one of the first firefighters on scene.
“We were quite early on the scene and got held in this underground car park and we were breathing all the toxins for ages,” another firefighter, who did not want to be identified, told the newspaper. He said he now has scarred lungs.
“This vital research proves that firefighters are suffering and dying from cancer, strokes, heart disease, and mental ill health as a result of going to work and protecting the public,”Fire Brigades Union National Official Riccardo la Torre told The Sun.
“We now know that firefighters are exposed to health and life-threatening contaminants as a result of their occupation, and certainly would have been at an incident the size and scale of the Grenfell Tower Fire.
The 24-story tower burned for 60 hours, beginning on on June 14, 2017 and claimed 72 lives.
Jan. 16, 2023 One year after St. Louis firefighter Benjamin Polson was killed in a house fire, the street outside Engine House 13 was named in his memory.
St. Louis firefighter Benjamin Polson died in a house fire a year ago, and he was remembered Saturday as the street outside the fire station was named in his honor.
A sign outside Engine House 13 now reads “Benjamin Polson Place.”
“That sign is going to be watching over as the kids continue to play in the street,” former Capt. Larry Conley told KMOV.com. “Hopefully the legacy continues.”
“It’s hard to believe it’s been a year,” retired Fire Chief Kenneth Smith said. “It’s been a very difficult year for the St. Louis fire department and especially for the Polson family.”
Polson, who was 32 at the time, responded from Engine House 13 to a Jan. 12, 2022 house fire.
As firefighters were exiting the vacant building, it collapsed and trapped Polson. He was removed but later died and another firefighter was seriously injured.
“To never forget his courage,” St. Louis Fire Captain Garon Mosby said. “Never forget his sacrifice. To never forget his service. To never forget his love, his zest, his zeal for life, his friends, those he loved.”
A firefighter medic accused a Wantagh fire chief and captain of rape.
Two Wantagh fire officers—a captain and a chief—are accused of raping a firefighter medic at a fire station last year.
According to paperwork, in January 2022, the plaintiff was invited to the captain’s birthday party at a fire station where the chief and captain suggested she have alcoholic drinks.
The two commented that she was the captain’s “birthday present,” according to a report by News12.com.
The alleged rape occurred after party guests left the fire station and it was just the three of them.
“These were not only her colleagues, but her superiors,” the victim’s attorney, Vess Mitev, told the television station. “I think as many of us knew and try to play it off in the public atmosphere because you don’t want to embarrass yourself and you don’t want to embarrass the person that’s making those comments as well. So, it’s not that she had no idea. It’s that no one had any idea what this night was about to turn into.”
The chief texted the plaintiff the next day, asking her to keep quiet.
Within days, she ended her membership with the Long Island fire department.
“The event was truly horrific for her to the point where obviously she had to stop doing one of the two things that she loved the most, which was working in the firehouse and helping people,” Mitev said.
According to initial paperwork from the department, the words “rape” or “sexual assault” did not appear for two months mid-March 2022.
The chief and the captain, who refused to take part in the investigation, are no longer with the department so they do not face any departmental charges.
The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office did not confirm to the television station if they were looking at criminal charges.
Jan. 14—ATLANTA — Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John F. King has announced that Dontavis George, 20, of Arlington, has been charged with three counts each of arson and criminal trespassing.
In October of 2022, King’s office was contacted by the Calhoun County Sheriff, Josh Hilton, in reference to a series of fires in Arlington.
“During October and November, two mobile home fires and one site-built structure fire in Arlington were determined to be incendiary in nature,” the fire commissioner said in a news release. “Working with investigators from the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office, we developed multiple leads that resulted in a full confession by Mr. George.”
Jan. 14—LOVELL — A two-story home built in the 1800s was destroyed in a fire Thursday evening.
Firefighters were called to the home at 506 Christian Hill Road about 6:50 p.m. and found it fully engulfed in flames, Lovell Fire Chief Mark Moulton said. Flames were knocked down by about 8:15 p.m.
Residents and their dog were out of the home when fire crews arrived. There were no reports of injuries.
The Office of Maine Fire Marshal is investigating the cause, but Moulton said it did not appear to be suspicious.
Firefighters from Stoneham, Fryeburg, Sweden and Saco Valley assisted the Lovell Fire Department with personnel and tankers.
Two volunteer firefighters were hurt in a house explosion in Pompton Lakes early Saturday morning, borough officials said.
After spotting smoke coming from a residential area at approximately 2:04 a.m. Saturday, members of Pompton Lakes Fire Department, a volunteer organization in Passaic County, responded to the scene of a house fire in the area of Ramapo Avenue and Riverdale Road, according to a statement posted on the fire department’s Facebook page.
Crew members had barely entered the home when, “seconds later, the house exploded,” the fire department said.
“I literally sat down in bed, went to go put my feet up and heard the explosion,” neighbor Shirley Jobes said. “I immediately jumped back up, looked out the window, and I saw pieces of the roof on fire up in the air and falling back down.”
Five Pompton Lakes firemen were inside the home when the explosion occurred, said Mayor Michael Serra in a statement posted to Facebook.
Two of the firefighters were sent to St. Barnabas Burn Center for non-life-threatening injuries. The men were treated and later released, the fire department said.
Three firefighters sustained minor injuries and were treated on scene and released.
“Everyday our volunteer organizations put their life on the line for Pompton Lakes,” Serra said. “We all appreciate it.”
The incident is under investigation by the State Fire Marshall and PC CSI, the fire department said.
Jan. 15, 2023 Las Vegas, Clark County and North Las Vegas firefighters used a defensive attack as flames devoured the long-vacant former Kmart building.
Firefighters battled a three-alarm fire that engulfed a vacant Kmart store building, a Clark County fire official said Saturday.
The Las Vegas Fire Department received the call about the blaze at 3 p.m. at 2975 E. Sahara Ave. near McLeod Street, and 30 units had arrived just before 4 p.m., according to Clark County Fire Department Assistant Chief Scott Carnahan.
The entire building was on fire as firefighters took a defensive posture outside, Carnahan said.
“There’s too much danger to going inside the building,” he said.
City of Las Vegas spokesman Jace Radke said the building was vacant.
Carnahan said the fire went to three alarms, and there was a partial collapse of the roof. No one was reported injured, and there were no immediate details on how the fire started or estimate of damage.
In an update Saturday evening Carnahan said the building was unstable.
“Building officials and public works have been requested for evaluation and the Parks Department is providing fencing to the area for security,” he said in an email.
Crews from the Clark County Fire Department, Las Vegas Fire Department and North Las Vegas Fire Department responded to the fire. Las Vegas police also assisted with drone support and traffic control.
A thick smoke plume could be seen across the valley.
The cohort of Saudi Aramco firefighters who traveled to the United States in an August 2022 photo with Atlanta firefighters.
A group of six Saudi Aramco Oil Company firefighters graduated Wednesday from a six-month international training program with the Atlanta Fire and Rescue Department.
The cohort traveled to the United States to learn American firefighting standards and training by immersing themselves in the culture. It’s part of the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ fellowship program that places Saudi Aramco firefighters in departments across the country.
The goal is for them to gain more aggressive, real-life experience in making strategic decisions under pressure by working in high-call volume fire departments, such as Atlanta, and taking those skills back to their department.
“These six months are your six months to learn, to experience, ask questions … to take back to your country — and to your department — everything you can,” Jeff Dulin, strategic advisor for the International Association of Fire Chiefs, told the group during their graduation ceremony at fire station 28 Wednesday morning.
The fire department for Saudi Aramco, one of the world’s largest energy companies, is charged with protecting the oil refinery’s industrial sites, as well as its communities. Each year, it sends multiple groups of firefighters to different U.S. fire departments. The IAFC picks up the bill, making it cost-neutral for host departments.
During their stay in Atlanta, the firefighters, many of whom already have several years of experience under their belt, lived at their assigned firehouses and worked alongside Atlanta firefighters. With the exception of providing medical care due to their visa status, they performed full firefighting duties according to their skill level.
Mohammed Alyahyawi, a 12-year veteran with Saudi Aramco, said he was initially worried it would be hard to be in such a new environment so far from home. But he was pleasantly surprised when he arrived. Everyone was welcoming and happy to help his group navigate the culture shock, and he made a lot of new friends, he said.
The Saudi firefighters all speak English, though some words — especially Atlanta’s slang — were a bit of a hurdle, Alyahyawi said.
It was “bittersweet” to see their time in Atlanta coming to an end, many of them said, coining a word they learned just the day before graduation. It described their emotions perfectly, they said.
“A few months ago, we left our home. We said goodbye to our families, friends and everyone we know. We embarked on a journey with no idea how it would be (in a) different country, different culture,” Ibrahim Alamri said. “And now, we will do the same thing (that) we did months ago: We will say goodbye to our friends here, to our families and to this country (that) now became our new home.”
The group will be headed back to Saudi Arabia over the next few days.
Since the program’s inception in 2016, there have been 22 cohorts with 160 graduates across the country, with plans for other countries to join the exchange program. Atlanta has hosted two fellowships, and the DeKalb County Fire Rescue Department has hosted one.
“It was our pleasure to open our fire stations to the visiting firefighters and we were honored to have been selected for the (fellowship) program for a second cohort,” said Michelle Middlebrooks, AFRD’s assistant chief of support services. “The fellows bring a new perspective to our department, and our firefighters consistently give feedback about the value that it brings. We are extremely proud to participate in this unique exchange.”
Firefighters from Petaluma Fire Department and other agencies responded to the fire.
Jan. 13—Fifteen people were displaced late Thursday night by a fire at an apartment complex in Petaluma, and a battalion chief confirmed that it appears to have started in the ground-floor carport area.
Firefighters were dispatched a little after 11:30 p.m. Thursday to Oak Creek Apartments at 110 Graylawn Ave., and arrived within three minutes to find the structure “well involved,” Petaluma Fire Department Battalion Chief Kevin Weaver said.
Heavy fire was coming from the carport area, with five vehicles on fire there along with the exterior of the building and upper-floor apartments, Weaver said. Firefighters worked quickly to extinguish the blaze, and no injuries were reported.
The complex was deemed uninhabitable, causing 15 people to be displaced, and damage is estimated to be near $500,000, the department said.
Weaver said firefighters always make a “head count” of displaced residents and report it to the local Red Cross in order to find them temporary housing.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Weaver said it could take days or weeks to make a final determination.
A resident of the complex posted on social media that the fire began with an electric vehicle in the carport.
“I can see that section of carport from my patio,” the resident said. “I was awake and had my slider open so I heard it when the flames started. I ran outside with my phone and called 911 and it was just that car on fire at that time. Then it quickly spread! Such a sad night for our neighbors!”
The resident added that “firemen spent a large portion of their visit focused on that car after flames were extinguished as well.”
Weaver confirmed one of the vehicles that burned was electric, but whether it was the cause of the fire was “hard to say because of the smoke and fire damage. … All the area was well involved when we arrived.”
Rancho Adobe Fire District, Sonoma Valley Fire Department and North Bay Fire District personnel also responded to the blaze.
An irrigation pivot waters a crop of sugar beets south of Meridian.
The United States has suffered from sixty $1 billion-plus weather and climate disasters in the last three years, totaling a loss exceeding $434.6 billion and 1,460 deaths, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
Some of the most significant losses have come via hurricanes and tornadoes throughout the Midwest and the southeast, but other types of natural disasters have ravaged the west, including Idaho.
The primary causes of $1 billion climate disasters in western states since 2020 are drought and wildfires.
According to the NCEI, Idaho has been involved in five such disasters: three wildfire-related disasters and two droughts.
Here is a list of the five $1 billion disasters that have affected Idaho in some capacity since 2020:
Fall 2020 – Western wildfires
August 2020 had an average temperature of 74.7 degrees nationwide, ranking as the third-warmest August on record at the time. A summer of below-average rainfall set up the perfect conditions for a busy wildfire season in the west — Colorado saw its largest wildfire on record, while California recorded its 2nd- and 3rd-largest wildfires in state history.
Idaho experienced 933 wildfires statewide in 2020, which burned more than 318,000 acres. Wildfire damage nationwide cost about $16.5 billion and caused 46 deaths; Idaho incurred between $100-250 million in damages, but NCEI does not provide death totals for individual states.
2021 – Western drought and heat dome
An historic Pacific Northwest heat dome characterized the summer of 2021, of which Idaho was very much a part. Boise recorded a high temperature of over 100 degrees 12 times in July 2021; the lowest high temperature was a balmy 91 degrees.
But it wasn’t just the extreme heat.
An already ongoing drought was intensified by high temperatures and rapidly dried out vegetation across the west, according to NOAA. By May, about half of Idaho was under drought conditions because a mild winter and warm spring led to a low snowpack, meaning less water in Idaho’s reservoirs.
Nationwide, the drought and heat wave resulted in $8.4 billion in damage and caused 229 deaths, while it cost Idahoans up to $100 million in damages. Several Idahoans died in the heat dome, such as a 38-year-old Idaho City woman who suffered a heat stroke while on a hike, and a 78-year-old Caldwell man died in his bed dehydrated.
“This heat dome for the Pacific Northwest, specifically (in) the coastal cities, was just so far different than what has been experienced previously,” Katie Lee, associate professor at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Sociology at the University of Idaho, previously told the Statesman. “Their infrastructure wasn’t capable of handling this heat.”
2021 – Western wildfires
The summer heat wave and severe drought conditions in 2021 also led to another active wildfire season that year.
Idaho’s marquee wildfire of the season was the Boundary Fire, which sparked up in mid-August and lasted until late October. The fire merged with the nearby Scarface Fire in mid-September, becoming a single wildfire still called the Boundary Fire. In total, it burned 87,778 acres of mixed conifer, timber, brush and short grass.
Continued drought conditions led to another busy wildfire season in the west throughout the summer of 2022. Although no Idaho fires were as damaging as the 2021 Boundary Fire, the Moose Fire near Salmon burned more than 130,000 acres of brush and timber, about one-third of the state’s total burned acreage in 2022.
Although the Moose Fire was larger than 2021’s Boundary Fire, the latter burned down valuable natural and economic resources in the Salmon-Challis National Forest and the Lowman Ranger District of the Boise National Forest.
Other fires in New Mexico, Oregon, Montana, California and Alaska resulted in a total damage cost of $3.1 billion and took 17 lives. Idaho’s damage total was in the range of $100-250 million but the total loss of life for the state is not provided in the data.
2022 – Western/Central Drought and Heat wave
Nationwide, the 2022 drought was one of the costliest on record, according to NOAA. It cost $21 billion in damages and led to 136 deaths. According to data provided by NCEI, Idaho was somewhere between $100-250 million of that total; NCEI does not provide a more precise figure.
The summer of 2022 was the second-hottest on record for Boise, surpassed only by the summer of 2021. Throughout the summer months, Boise hit the triple-digit mark on 23 occasions and, including September, pushed that total up to 27 days. It’s a total that blows the previous record of 20 days in a calendar year, set in 2003, out of the water.
While such hot temperatures provide the perfect excuse to get outside and enjoy summer activities, heat exhaustion and heat stroke are serious dangers for children and people over 65.
Heat stroke kicks in when the body cannot control its temperature and its sweating mechanism fails, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, resulting in body temperature rising as high as 106 degrees within 10 to 15 minutes.
“People should be mindful to always have a place to cool off,” Les Colin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boise, told the Statesman.
“Make sure if you go out or travel, have something to drink,” Colin continued. “Make sure you keep your animals well-watered and generally inside, out of the sun — basically, normal, common sense measures to not allow yourself to be overcome by the heat.”
The The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tips on how to avoid heat exhaustion and stroke and what the next step should be to alleviate the issue.
Heat exhaustion
Dizziness
Thirst
Heavy sweating
Nausea
Weakness
What to do: Move to a cooler area, loosen clothing and sip on cool water. Seek medical help if the symptoms don’t improve because heat exhaustion can lead to heat stroke.
Heat stroke
Confusion
Dizziness
Becoming unconscious
What to do: Move the person to a cooler area, loosen clothing, remove any extra layers, and cool with water or ice.
