By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Hutchinson Fire Chief Steven Beer noted a major issue with his firefighters when speaking to the City Council about the work that needs to be done for reaccreditation at the council's Tuesday meeting.
"All our gear right now hangs inside the station by the fire trucks," Beer said. "They want it in a separate room. The new station that's going to be built has a special turnout gear room that's positive pressurized for cancer. This gear is offgassing all the time. We go to a dumpster fire, car fire, whatever. We did an internal study with our retirees. Seventy to 75 percent of my retirees have died of cancer."
This has an impact on life expectancy of firefighters generally.
"A firefighter's average life is ten years less than the average person in the general public," Beer said. "It's because of cancer. We are doing everything we can. Since I've been here, since 2017, you'll see our guys washing down after a fire scene, scrubbing their turnout gear. They actually bag it in a garbage bag, bring it back to the station and put it into a wash machine. They go right into a shower, right away, because your skin's a big thing. A couple of these recommendations revolve around reducing cancer and trying to get our retirees to have a healthy retirement."
As part of that effort, there may need to be some architectural work and then construction at some of the other fire stations, with the hope to get the initial drawings into next year's budget.
"Three of our stations are almost identical," Beer said. "The plans could be modified to fit that at stations three, five and seven. The work on station one would be accomplished already. Then we'd be looking at four and six for probably a couple different designs. I think we have to start with the architectural work here. We're not talking big additions here. We're talking a room 10 by 20, putting on to the outside bay of the station."
No cost estimates for the drawings were given at Tuesday's meeting.