Ageing firefighters may impair the quality of emergency responses — ASN Events
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Ageing firefighters may impair the quality of emergency responses (#137)

Anthony Walker 1 2 , Matthew Driller 3 , Christos Argus 4 , Julie Cooke 1 , Ben Rattray 1
  1. UC National Institute of Sport Studies, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia
  2. ACT Fire & Rescue, Canberra, ACT, Australia
  3. Department of Sport and Leisure Studies, University of Waikato, Tauranga, New Zealand
  4. Department of Physiology, Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, Australia

An increase in retirement ages sees growing numbers of older firefighters responding to emergency incidents in Australasia. The mean age at ACT Fire & Rescue is currently 43 years 11 months. Poor fitness and inappropriate body composition are linked to cardiac events in firefighters worldwide, likely due to the high intensity, intermittent nature of emergency responses in the heat. The impacts of ageing on this population are not well understood in an Australian context.
This study investigated the impacts of ageing on fitness and body composition variables of 73 operational urban firefighters (mean ± SD age 38.9 ± 9.0 years, 180.8 ± 6.6 cm and 84.2 ± 9.2 kg). Fitness was assessed using the Yo-Yo Intermittent recovery test, grip strength and power testing based on recruitment protocols used by ACT Fire & Rescue. Body composition was assessed using Dual-Energy X-Ray analysis conducted at the University of Canberra. The present fire service, like most other services in Australasia, does not currently employ a health and wellbeing program for firefighters.
We observed significant declines by 10-year age groups in predicted aerobic capacity (p<0.001), strength (p=0.001) and power (p<0.001). Changes in body composition included increasing body fat and decreasing lean muscle mass along with increasing waist circumference. However, no differences in body mass index (BMI) were observed. BMI is a standard generally used when studying the health status of workers and findings from this study suggest that BMI may be inappropriate for assessing body composition in this population.
The negative effects of ageing on body composition and fitness of firefighters is likely impacting on the operational safety and effectiveness of fire services. Further, sedentary work practices and the lack of cohesive fitness programs across Australian fire services are likely exacerbating the declines observed in the present study. Thus, we recommend that fire services employ health and wellbeing programs to ameliorate the significant age-related declines currently occurring in Australian firefighters.