1. Ageing firefighters may impair the quality of emergency responses.
Walker A1,2, Argus C2,3, Driller M4 and Rattray B2
1ACT Fire & Rescue Service, Canberra, Australia 2UC Research Institute for Sport and Exercise, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia, 3 ACT Brumbies Super Rugby, Canberra, Australia 4 Department of Sport and Leisure Studies, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.
@walks547
Background
Results
Poor physical fitness levels and inappropriate body composition are linked with cardiac events in firefighters worldwide (1) which responsible for over 50% of line of duty injury and deaths. With ages of firefighters increasing in Australia (43yrs 11months in the present service) the effects of ageing on the operational response capabilities and likely risk of cardiac events in services is currently unknown.
Safely completing firefighting tasks requires a minimum VO2 max of 42 ml.kg-1.min-1 (2). Most Australian fire services conduct physical abilities testing (PAT) during recruitment requiring 9.6 on a beep test (equivalent to 45 ml.kg-1.min-1 VO2 max). Work specific evolutions are also undertaken but are different between services.
No Australian urban fire service tests
fitness post-recruitment
Given a lack of ongoing testing and reporting, the effects of ageing on the physical standard of Australian firefighters is lacking. Thus, this study aimed to understand changes in physical fitness and body composition and inform likely increases in risk profiles for injury and cardiac events.
Figure 1 (left) : Change in Body Composition by 10-year age groups.  Represents lean mass
 represents BMI and  represents body fat. No significant changes were detected.
Figure 2 (right)Predicted Aerobic Capacity by 10-year age groups. The dotted line represents VO2 of 42 ml.min-1.kg-1 required to safely complete firefighting operations. ^ Represents a significant decrease between age groups (p<0.001). * And ** represent a significant decrease (p<0.05).
Methods
73 male firefighters of all operational ranks (age 38.9 ± 9.0 years, height ± 6.6 cm, weight 84.2 ± 9.2 kg) volunteered to undertake body composition and physical ability testing over two sessions within a 14 day period.
Testing consisted of
Session 1 - Body Composition – DEXA
Session 2 - Predicted aerobic capacity – YYRT1, and
- Work specific power testing
77 kg Dummy Drag (60 m)
50 m Hose Drag (25 mm charged hose)
Participants were grouped into 10 year age groups for analysis. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to compare test results according to the age groups.
Figure 3:. Results of (A) Hose Drag and (B) Dummy Drag by 10- year age groups. The dotted lines represent the recruitment benchmark for ACT Fire & Rescue. * And ** represent significant increases in the time taken to complete the testing.
Ageing is resulting in significant physical declines,
possibly leading to reduced safety of older firefighters
Conclusion
This study has shown that significant age related physical declines are occurring within an Australian urban fire service. These declines are likely being exacerbated by a lack of cohesive health and wellbeing programs within the service and as a result have remained largely undetected. Given a lack of monitoring of firefighters, these results are likely common to all fire services within Australia and thus represents a likely significant WH&S risk.
With the mean age of firefighters increasing, it is important that firefighters can safely complete work tasks regardless of age. Therefore, we recommend that all Australian fire services implement evidence-based workplace health and wellbeing programs to ensure that all firefighters are fit-for-duty at all ages.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to ACT Fire & Rescue for providing funding and operational firefighters and officers for this study.
References
Firefighter Health and Fitness Assessment: A call to action. (Storer, TW et al. 2013)
Third Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service. (NFPA. 2011)