Heroes at Risk: Protecting the Firefighters Who Protect Us

Outdated California regulations are leading to toxic fire retardant chemicals in furniture sold in California and distributed across the nation. This blog documents the adventures of advocates fighting the chemical industry in a high-stakes battle in Sacramento to prohibit toxic chemicals in furniture found in millions of American homes. Russell Long of Friends of the Earth, Mary Brune of Making Our Milk Safe (MOMS), biophysical chemist Arlene Blum, and Joan Blades of MomsRising.org, (which is launching a letter to the Governor campaign to support AB 706) will share their adventures as they work together to phase out toxic brominated and chlorinated chemical fire retardants from the nation's furniture.

My dad was a firefighter. He retired at age 55 after serving in the department for 35 years. He used to joke that he was a firefighter for so long, that when he started they didn't even use oxygen masks. And that would be funny if it weren't also true. At the time he retired, he had already suffered for decades with asthma, survived prostate cancer, and was beginning dialysis to treat kidney disease. Heart disease followed and eventually claimed his life at the age of 61.

When I was a kid, my two sisters and I would often visit my dad at the firehouse. We would gather around the table in the kitchen sharing a meal with the other firefighters, telling jokes and laughing. Sometimes when we visited, the alarm bell would ring. Utensils would clang to the table as everyone dashed off to drop into waiting rubber boots and soot-stained overalls. My sisters and I would wait, often for hours, for our dad to return. And he always did. It never even occurred to us that he might not.

My work on Assembly Bill 706, The California Furniture Safety and Fire Prevention Act has made me think about my dad a lot lately and what it must have been like for him to rush into those burning buildings: black smoke so thick he couldn't see, desperately searching for lives to save, without much concern for his own. It wasn't until adulthood that I came to appreciate the selfless nature and the sheer bravery of his chosen profession. Regrettably, he died before I ever got around to telling him.

I've also been thinking about Crystal Golden-Jefferson, a female firefighter and paramedic from Los Angeles, who died of work-related non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 41, leaving behind an eight-year-old daughter. Golden-Jefferson's bravery extended beyond that which she displayed while fighting fires and saving others. For the two years before her death, she fearlessly fought back at cancer in an effort to save her own life.

Having witnessed a neighbor's home burn to the ground as a teenager, I know how devastating a house fire can be. In a flash, it can not only destroy a family's home, but also reduce its memories and shared history to little more than a pile of ash. Indeed, fires are tragic events that must be prevented; however, we must do so without causing additional tragedies such as the loss of a parent due to cancer or disease.

The terrible reality is when some fire retardants burn they give off a toxic smoke filled with dioxins and furans -- two highly carcinogenic compounds. And it is the repeated exposure to those and other chemicals, fire after fire, year after year, that was the likely cause of Crystal Golden-Jefferson's cancer. In November 2006, the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine published an analysis of 32 studies that found that fire fighters have significantly elevated rates of four types of cancer: multiple myeloma, prostate, testicular, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- the cancer that claimed Crystal Golden-Jefferson's life.

The public is just becoming aware of the horrible impact that cancer is having on those who risk their lives fighting fires. In the last 10 years in San Francisco alone, 250 active duty and retired firefighters have contracted cancer and 40 have died. AB 706, authored by San Francisco Assemblyman Mark Leno, would update California's furniture fire safety standards that have become de facto national standards, to deliver equivalent fire safety without the use of the most toxic, cancer-causing fire retardants.

As a mother of a young girl myself, I can't even imagine how painful it must have been for Golden-Jefferson to realize, as her cancer progressed, that she wouldn't live to see her daughter graduate from college, fall in love, or become a mother herself one day.

The loss of a parent is a profound and defining event. It is for the children of fire fighters lost to cancer, and for every fire fighter that we must act immediately to get the most toxic fire retardants out of our furniture and out of our homes. We must ensure that the soot and smoke from blazes they battle today don't become the cause of cancers in the future.

Although I never told my dad how much I admired his bravery, by working to pass AB 706, which today was renamed The Crystal Golden-Jefferson Furniture Safety and Fire Prevention Act, I can help ensure that Crystal's daughter knows the people of California honor her mother's life of service and sacrifice. I hope that the California Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger will honor Crystal and the thousands of fire fighters fighting cancer by passing AB 706 into law.

Related Links:

The Couch CAT-astrophe, by Arlene Blum

One Mom's Message to the Chemical Industry: Don't mess with my milk!, by Mary Brune

Comments

[KimberlySimaya]

Crystal Golden-Jefferson was my cousin. As a little girl I looked up to her in every way. She became a firefighter because she admired my grandfather and uncle who where both firefighters. When Crystal died, I was one week away from giving birth to my daughter. I never completely mourned my loss of such a wonderful woman but two years later I am notifying as many lobbyists and firefighting organizations as possible in New Jersey, Colorado and South Carolina where I reside so that I can help save other families the pain and anguish of losing a hero over something as mundane and frivolous as flame retardants in furniture. It truly is an easy fix we just need to stand together and let others know so that this problem becomes resolved. Firefighters are not expendable, they lay their lives on the line everyday for all of us so we owe them the courtesy of rallying for them.

[pygmytyke]

Thank you for making us aware of the carcinogins in the smoke from fires.We here on the east coast are only begining to realize the enormity of the problem as we learn of the thousands of first-responders and average citizens who are now coming down with serious smoke related health problems from the 9-11 disaster. It is absolutely appalling that our elected officials at every governmental level are turning a blind eye allowing the egregious use of dangerous toxic chemicals to continue to be used in building materials.
Keep up the good work!

[BigTuna]

Prior to the invention of the Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, firefighters would often grow long beards that could be rolled up and stuffed into their mouths to act as an air filter (!). Now we have SCBAs, nomex, and layered turnout gear to allow firefighters to operate in conditions that would have been unthinkable to the old timers.

This is a huge step in the right direction. I believe the next problem that must be conquered is the capacity of SCBAs. Most are able to provide 20-30 minutes at most, depending on workload. As a result firefighters do not "plug in" until the last possible moment prior to entry in order to conserve their air supply. This exposes them to the smoke and toxins that SCBAs were designed to eliminate, albeit at much lower concentrations than in the interior of a burning structure. Higher capacity SCBAs will allow firefighers to begin using their air much earlier before conditions become unhealthy. That too would be a great step in the right direction.