The number once threat to firefighters nowadays is no longer giant blazes, but rather a silent killer.

Saskatoon Fire Fighters Union Representative Jayden Poirier says of 330 line-of-duty deaths of Canadian fire fighters in the last four years, 93 per cent of them were caused by cancer.

He says mesothelioma, testicular cancer, esophageal cancer, non-Hodgkins’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma are the top five most common cancer types contracted by firefighters.

“As we started noticing these things, that cancer was causing our members to pass away, we started getting different levels of government involved.”

It wasn’t until 2022 that firefighting was declared carcinogenic to humans, and not until even more recently that the workers compensation board offered compensation for cancer diagnoses.

However, Poirier says service terms required for compensation eligibility are often lengthy.

“If you contract leukemia, it says in order to be WCB eligible, you need to have a minimum of five years of service… On the other end of that spectrum, esophageal cancer, you need to have 25 years of service as a firefighter to be covered by WCB.”

The Union continues to work to get those terms lowered, as well as secure periodic preventative cancer screenings for crew members.

Locally, an increased understanding of the dangers that come with firefighting has allowed more resources to be introduced. For example, a recent push for enhanced decontamination efforts gave Saskatoon Fire Department members access to a preliminary exposure reduction trailer. This allows crew members to clean up more quickly instead of waiting until they are back at the station.