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[quote=Anonymous]Firefighting is an essential job--but your kid should know that it comes with a lot of health risks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/us/wildfire-firefighter-cancer.html
[quote]
‘If I Live to 25, I’ve Lived a Good Life’

Joel Eisiminger was racing to save homes in Northern California from a fast-spreading wildfire when a crewmate noticed that one side of his face was suddenly drooping so much that his mouth hung open.

In his six years fighting fires, Joel had tumbled down burning hills, endured full-body rashes from poison oak and inhaled plumes of smoke that left him gasping for weeks. But he had never felt as bad as he did on this morning in July 2024. He didn’t want to let down his crew, so he kept working deep in the forest until a medic told him to get to a hospital. He might have had a stroke.

As the doctors ran tests, Joel grew sicker. Within days, he was too exhausted to walk. On the eve of his 25th birthday, he received a diagnosis: acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive, often fatal blood cancer that usually strikes people more than twice his age. Joel told the doctors he was not a regular smoker and had no family history of blood cancers. But he did have one risk factor: his job.

For decades, wildfire fighters have been sent to work in toxic smoke without masks or warnings about long-term health risks, The New York Times has reported. They inhale poisons that are linked to more than a dozen kinds of cancer, including leukemia. Many are falling gravely ill, and some are dying at young ages.

After sending Joel across five states, Pacific Oasis tapped him in 2019 to lead a small squad. He took care to teach new recruits about wearing hard hats and goggles. He didn’t give much guidance about respiratory protection, though, because there was little protocol for that. There had been nothing in his training about the long-term health risks of smoke inhalation.
Like most wildland firefighters, Joel had been taught to wear a bandanna in bad air. This has been standard practice for years, even though bandannas offer no barrier against carcinogens.
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