25,000

Evacuated

25,000 people have been evacuated after a fire broke out in in a control room of Germany’s biggest theme park, EuropaPark, near the French border.

More than 450 emergency personnel rushed to the park to assist with evacuation as well as firefighting. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, and although the area directly around the scene of the incident remains closed while the investigation is on-going, the rest of the park has reopened.

High risk of cardiovascular diseases and infection

Firefighter Instructors, who train firefighter staff across the UK and typically face up to five to ten times the number of live fires compared to regular firefighters, have been found to have chronic inflammation leaving them at greater risk of cardiovascular diseases, infection and illness, according to new research by the University of Roehampton London.

Led by Dr Emily Watkins, Lecturer in Environmental and Exercise Physiology at the University of Roehampton London, the study measured blood samples, blood pressure and psychological data from 136 UK Fire and Rescue Service personnel, including from Breather Apparatus Instructors (BAI), over six months. High BAIs, who are exposed to over 20 fires per month, showed clear signs of systemic inflammation, which occurs when the immune system is constantly defending the body, making them more susceptible to infections and illness.

This is the first study to indicate that these symptoms are consistently shown amongst high BAIs over time. The research also found that high BAIs, who are exposed to a greater number of physically demanding tasks, encapsulating personal protective equipment and extreme heat environment, exhibit elevated levels of numerous biomarkers that puts them in “high risk” categories for cardiac events, such as a heart attack.

The research demonstrates the importance for fire services to ensure training fire workloads are safely and effectively managed and that exposure limits, particularly for Firefighter Instructors, are applied. The research recommends that 10-15 fire exposures per month are a reasonable maximum workload, with a greater number of exposures per month elevating the likelihood of systemic inflammation.

The research follows new findings by the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2022, which has now classified occupational exposure to fires as carcinogenic to humans, with sufficient evidence of mesothelioma and bladder cancer in firefighters.

A copy of the research paper ‘Inflammatory and psychological consequences of chronic high exposure firefighting” is available to download here https://tinyurl.com/325c5djb