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Minnesota firefighters say lessons from 9/11 are still shaping how they confront long-term health risks on the job.
There are about 20,000 firefighters across Minnesota, and the Minnesota Firefighter Initiative, or MnFIRE, estimates 68% of fire personnel develop cancer in their lifetimes.
The group says cancer is the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths.
“The air toxins that happened in 9/11 was a kind of wake-up call to the fire service,” said Scott Vadnais, President of the Minnesota Professional Firefighters Association.
In 2021, state lawmakers approved the Hometown Heroes Assistance Program, providing $4 million a year to address firefighter work-related health issues. The measure passed two decades after 9/11.
What changed?
“We were seeing people die of the same things, cancer, cardiac and mental health. And when that started to happen, we’...
