Today, it’s hard to believe that surgeons in the 19th century proudly strolled into operating rooms donning frocks caked with dried blood. Bodily fluids from previous patients weren’t seen as a health hazard, but a badge of honor. Only later did the medical profession make the connection between unsanitary surgical attire and the infections that were killing their patients.

Firefighters in the 20th century also were known to take affectionate pride in wearing grubby gear on the job. Many of them saw their soot-covered coats as evidence of bravery and hard-earned experience. Like the surgeons, they would come to realize, albeit far too late, that their battle-tested bunker gear could also carry potentially deadly hazards.

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Firefighters routinely are exposed to carcinogens, an occupational peril that’s become increasingly evident in this century. Now a group of city of Houston firefighters, some of whom are battling cancer, complain that the department doesn’t have the equipment or the procedures necessary to adequately clean dangerous substances from protective equipment they wear on the job. The Texas Commission on Fire Protection has rightly opened an investigation, but this problem needs to be addressed locally — and quickly.

Everybody knows firefighting is a dangerous job — one that requires not only courage but stamina. Lugging around 60 pounds of bunker gear, including a heavy coat, thick pants, breathing apparatus, air tank and a helmet is challenge enough while battling a blaze. Now imagine hauling a hose or an axe into a burning building on a hot summer day while carrying an injured victim down a staircase. But there’s a difference between dangers that can’t be avoided and those that can.

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Only recently has the likelihood of contracting cancer been quantified. In 2010, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health concluded that nearly 30,000 firefighters whose careers spanned six decades had a roughly 9 percent increase in cancer diagnoses and a 14 percent increase in cancer-related deaths. The firefighters’ union says 28 of its roughly 4,000 members have died since 2000 from cancers caused by on-the-job carcinogens, and at least 10 active-duty firefighters currently have cancer.

Modern building materials and furniture made from plastics and other synthetic matter can release carcinogens when they burn. Firefighters’ bunker gear can absorb microscopic particles of those substances that can stay in place if the material isn’t deep-cleaned in machinery called a gear extractor. HFD follows national protocol by requiring each article of gear to be deep-cleaned at least once a year.

Firefighters argue that’s not often enough. They also complain that none of HFD’s 94 fire stations has extractors to deep-clean gear more than once a year, even though Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and El Paso all provide their firefighters with several in-house extractors. Fire Chief Sam Pena has been passing the hat since shortly after he was appointed in late 2016, seeking private donations to purchase gear-cleaning equipment for individual stations. The chief says he’s now in the process of buying the equipment for the downtown station, and he plans to eventually install commercial extractors in 25 stations. But this equipment should have been in place a long time ago.

Houston City Council’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, chaired by Brenda Stardig, needs to ride herd on this issue. Council members should call Chief Pena and union representatives into chambers for a public discussion about what our city must do to adequately protect its firefighters from cancer. After studying the best practices instituted by other departments, the mayor and city council need to ensure that enough stations have cleaning equipment to adequately protect firefighters from this potentially deadly hazard.

Firefighters carry a great burden, standing ready to risk their lives to save people and property. The least we can do is lighten the load. Contacting cancer from dirty gear is one peril the men and women who commit to this hot, hazardous job shouldn’t have to worry about.