An appliance that saves lives
April 18, 2019
It looks so unassuming, doesn’t it? Not quite as small as the washing machine in your house – more like the industrial-sized ones found in laundromats and hotels. But it certainly doesn’t look like it could save a life. Especially not a firefighter’s.
And yet, that’s exactly what it does. Because this washing machine – known to firefighters as a “gear washer” – is specially designed to extract the carcinogens that build up in the turnout gear they wear when they fight fires. Why is that important? Because those carcinogens, also known as toxic combustion byproducts, stick around long after a firefighter leaves a call, which can lead to health problems such as lung damage, chronic bronchitis and cancer.
Fighting fires is a dangerous job. So you’d think that the number-one killer of firefighters nationwide is something like smoke inhalation or structure collapse – but it’s actually heart disease. Even young, otherwise healthy firefighters can develop it after only three hours of firefighting. Cancer is running a close second as the leading killer of firefighters, and will likely overtake it soon.
And although it’s not practical to keep firefighters from running into burning buildings, removing the toxic combustion byproducts from their gear is one way to decrease their exposure to it. That’s where gear washers and dryers come in.
Unfortunately, although gear washers and dryers are an effective and efficient way to clean turnout gear, many Minnesota fire departments can’t afford to purchase them on their own. They can be 10 to 20 times more expensive than the average residential washing machine. But thanks to a grant funded by the Minnesota Fire Safety Account and allocated by the State Fire Marshal Division (SFMD), 145 Minnesota fire departments have been able to buy gear washers and dryers since 2015.
In 2018 alone, SFMD allocated about $600,000 in grants to 30 departments for gear washers, 27 for gear dryers, and 16 for both. That’s more than 2,300 firefighters whose risk of cancer and heart disease will be greatly reduced. Just think of how many more lives those healthy firefighters will be able to save. Pretty impressive for a washing machine.
