January is Firefighters’ Cancer Awareness Month and for the 2025 occasion the Association des Pompiers de Montréal reports that 89 of its members have died of work-related cancer, compared with 3 in action over the past 15 years.
The Association President Chris Ross said that firefighters in the metropolis recieved 125,000 calls in 2023, adding: “This silent killer is a tragic daily reminder to firefighters that this insidious disease is growing in tandem with repeated exposure to toxins from the synthetic products that make up the main structural elements of all the modern buildings in Montreal’s built heritage.”
However, Ross spoke about the involvement of Ottawa’s Minister of Health and Quebec’s Minister of Labour, both of whom agree that firefighters’ working conditions need to be re-evaluated in light of the current economic climate.
Montreal’s firefighters are in a rather unique situation, having to deal with the complexity of an exclusive multimodal transport network and a built heritage at greater risk, with a host of high-rise buildings and a historic district, Old Montreal, making their task particularly perilous.
Chris Ross also discussed how that’s not counting these perfluoroalkylated and polyfluoroalkylated synthetic substances (PFAS) which form form a complex chemical class of several thousand fluorinated organic compounds.
Ross said how this can lead to major health problems such as liver damage, thyroid disease, obesity, fertility problems and cancers of all kinds.
For the Association, the key to solving this growing problem remains prevention and early detection of these occupational diseases.
The Association des Pompiers de Montréal has spoken out in support of Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month, using the January 2025 milestone to discuss what Association President Chris Ross called a silent killer.
