A Snohomish firefighter in gear is sprayed with one of the department’s new StormStick decontaminating devices that is attached to a fire engine on Tuesday, Nov. 12. One firefighter wears full gear while the StormStick sprays them with soapy water, while another firefighter scrubs their gear with a bristle brush.
Photo by Maeve Smith
SNOHOMISH — This month Snohomish County Fire District #4 received two new pieces of safety equipment: the StormStick and an oxygen cylinder lift. One is to reduce the risks of carcinogen contamination and the other to reduce injury to firefighters.
Cancer is currently the leading cause of death among firefighters, with 72% of line of duty deaths in 2023 being cancer related, according to the International Association of Fire Fighters union.
Occupational cancers are caused by exposure to hazardous materials which become particulates in building fires that coat firefighters with cancerous materials. “It permeates our gear. It’s all over,” said Snohomish Fire District 4 Chief Don Waller.
Chief Waller has had personal experiences with line of duty cancer deaths, with his father and a close colleague passing away from occupational cancers. “You know, having gone through it personally, you know how it affects yourself, families, and it’s something that we don’t have to have,” Waller said.
These experiences informed his work. Waller has stayed committed to reducing cancer and injury risks for his employees since he took on the role of Snohomish’s chief in 2020. “It’s probably the No. 1 priority since I became fire chief is making sure that we create a better working environment for future fire generations.”
“The 20-year-olds that we’re hiring, in 20 years I don’t want them to have the same experiences that we’ve had to have by losing friends and co-workers and families and peers and colleagues,” Waller said.
The StormStick is a big part of that. The StormStick device operates similar to an emergency shower, with three nozzles which spray water horizontally onto a firefighter, who uses a scrub brush to remove hazardous materials from their gear. The device is loaded with a detergent cartridge to enhance the decontamination process.
“The biggest thing is to wash as much of that gross contamination off so that when we’re taking our gear off, it doesn’t get transported to our skin and our lungs and our everything,” Waller said.
Fire District 4 purchased three StormSticks for the district.
“That’s one for each of our frontline engines,” said district Assistant Chief Greg Osborne.
Before the StormStick, firefighters would use one of the fire hoses on scene for decontamination. This method fell short as it “doesn’t get in all the nooks and crannies because it’s kind of like dumping a bucket of water on you,” Waller said.
Beyond the StormStick, Chief Waller has implemented a wide range of cancer-fighting programs.
Since 2022, a yearly physical is now mandatory for everyone working at Snohomish Fire, and is tailored to the specific health concerns of active duty firefighters. These appointments screen for a variety of cancers including breast, thyroid, prostate, and many rare cancers that firefighters have an increased risk of contracting.
Chief Waller also laid out new PPE requirements, with every firefighter receiving two full sets of PPE “so they can clean one and use one,” Waller said. “We used to get our gear dirty, and if you are working for another 12, 24, 48 hours, you just wore the dirty gear until you stopped working.”
In combination with this effort to not rewear dirty gear, Chief Waller has implemented the Clean Cab Concept. This involves “taking anything that’s exposed to the fire out of the cab that they’re (the firefighters) in all the time and putting it back into the compartments,” said Chief Waller.
Previously all dirty gear and PPE would ride in the main cab where firefighters sit, further increasing the risk of carcinogen exposure.
A major concern of Chief Waller’s is the lack of sleep firefighters often experience while on duty. “The latest research is really pointing toward sleep as kind of the No. 1 cause of mental health issues and the cancer,” said Chief Waller.
To combat this concern, Waller is keeping sleep at the forefront of his mind while designing a facilities upgrade for FD4 headquarters to be built at Fourth and Pine avenues. These upgrades include better alerting systems to ensure firefighters are only waking up if they need to, and redesigning rooms so those sleeping won’t be disturbed by other firefighters.
The goal of this redesign is to have “the best service to the citizens and the least impact to the employees,” Waller said.
The first of these facilities upgrades will begin in quarter 2 of 2025, with a second facility upgrade beginning in 2027, and a third in 2029.
Fire District 4 was able to purchase the StormSticks and an oxygen cylinder lift through a grant with Firefighter Injury and Illness Reduction (FIIRE), a program run by Washington State Labor and Industries (LNI).
The oxygen cylinder lift aims to reduce the risk of back injury while lifting large steel oxygen tanks onto ambulances. “Back injuries are our prevalent No. 1 injury to firefighters in the United States,” said Assistant Chief Osborne.
The fire district has been part of FIIRE since early 2023 after developing safety improvement plans about carcinogen reduction and injury and illness reduction, with the first waves of the program beginning just a year and a half beforehand. “We wanted to jump in as soon as we can because it is a better program for our firefighters,” said Chief Waller.
LNI provides a list to FIIRE members of eligible items that departments can apply for grants to purchase. “We as a safety committee looked at some things that we wouldn’t necessarily immediately budget for, but things that we would really like to have that would improve safety and chose those,” said Assistant Chief Osborne discussing the purchasing of the StormSticks and oxygen lift.
Fire District 4 is making large and important strides to increase firefighter safety. These recent gear upgrades are only a small step in Chief Waller’s fight to decrease cancer risks among his firefighters, and maintain a healthier work environment.
“The fire service is really like a family,” Waller said. “That’s what you do in the family, is you’re always trying to make the next generation have a better, more meaningful life. And we’re trying to have a better, more meaningful career for the firefighters that come behind us.”
