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AFD fighting fires, cancer with Clean Cab Truck Designs
AUSTIN, Texas - The fire trucks at a scene in North Austin had what was needed to extinguish the flames on Wednesday but soon a new fleet of fire trucks will start rolling on calls with a new design called Clean Cabs.
"We concerned ourselves being in the fire, and being in the products of combustion but we never thought we were actually at risk when we left the fire,” said AFD Battalion Chief Lance Zenkner.
Zenkner is in charge of the design process for AFD.
"One of the biggest things we ran into, where we started to look at was, where are we causing the problem, and a lot of it was the porous materials we were putting into the units."
Cloth seats are replaced with vinyl. Textured panels and floors, as well as carpet, are eliminated.
"Many of these surfaces will become smooth, without any texturing,” said Zenkner.
Without the change, surfaces had to be scrubbed and even then there was no guarantee the exposure risk would be eliminated.
"We were essentially coating the inside of our apparatus with those products of combustion that produce carcinogens,” said Zenkner.
He went on to say. "It is absolute common sense we just never realized that we were dragging this stuff in here and holding it in these units."
Zenkner and his design team recently returned from a trip to a manufacturing site in South Dakota. Pictures were posted on Facebook of a new truck they inspected.
Three others with more clean cab features will be assembled later this year.
The trucks are expensive, about $800-thousand each but the clean cab design typically does not increase costs.
AFD is going to have to wait a few weeks for their new wheels to arrive. But firefighters don’t have to wait for new clean gear to show up.
A program that brings fire crews clean turn-out gear started in 2018. Jackets and pants, worn during fires, which can be covered with debris are bagged up, hauled away and washed at a central cleaning site. The initiatives are big changes according to union president Bob Nicks.
"There was a time when it was too slow a time when the city actually sued one of our firefighters to stop a cancer claim that 2 administrative state judges had ruled in their favor, so we are starting to head in the right way," said Nicks.
Another idea Nicks is interested in is a special fund to address job-related illnesses. Something like what the NFL has for players who later in life develop mental health problems from concussions.
"I would say we should get together and try to quantify what the cost could be in the future and make sure we have the proper funding,” said Nicks.
For now, the focus remains on reducing the risk by reducing exposure.