Austin firefighters walk 22 miles to support battalion chief battling cancer

AUSTIN, Texas - Austin firefighters walked over 22 miles Saturday for the "Long Walk for Travis" to support Battalion Chief Travis Maher.

"The firefighters, on their own, very organically came together and wanted to do something to honor one of our firefighters who's suffering from cancer, and the prognosis is not very good," Bob Nicks, president of the Austin Firefighters Association said.

Maher was exposed to deadly carcinogens when he went to work the debris pile in New York after 9/11 during his time with the Austin Fire Department.

The group is walking to all the fire stations he's worked at.

"Travis has a long and storied career. He was on the Hazardous Materials team, he was on Special Operations, he's a member of Texas Task Force 1," Nicks said.

Maher is one of many firefighters dealing with the dangerous effects of the job. "It's a national phenomenon, and Travis is one of the latest victims," Nicks said.

Nicks says more firefighters have died of cancer cleaning up the aftermath of 9/11 than the number that died the day of. He says they do what they can to try to prevent cancers.

"There's lots of steps we have done to make sure that we are creating a barrier between ourselves and the carcinogens, but it's impossible to do that entirely," he said.

Some of those steps include cleaning gear regularly, having a wellness center, and sending the first crews home for showers immediately.

"Every time you go to a fire, the different things that burn, nobody can tell you exactly what's in the air," Nicks said.

Nicks says when he was in the field, "you take a shower after a fire you could smell the soot coming off your body, you're blowing stuff out of your nose for days even though you had protective equipment on most of that time."

For everyone who sees the group walking, Nicks says, "firefighters are honoring their friend while there's time, and what we'd like from the public is to just pray for his family and his wife and his children and of course for Travis."