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Fitter firefighters recover faster and perform better work.

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Fitter firefighters recover faster and perform better work.

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Fitness plays a huge role in wildfire suppression and this study examines how much fitness impacts.

The fitter a firefighter is, the more work is achieved on the fire ground from both a time and efficiency perspective.

Firefighters with a higher level of fitness have a much faster recovery time than those with a lower fitness-indicating they need less time to rest in order to regenerate and be able to produce the same work load.

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What cause of fatigue has the greatest impact on firefighter performance?

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What cause of fatigue has the greatest impact on firefighter performance?

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Firefighters have one of the most dangerous and challenging jobs in the world - any research into how to potentially reduce risks and hazards would have a great impact on reduction of injuries and deaths.

Some of the leading causes of death amongst firefighters include heart attacks, falling trees and vehicle collisions.  Firefighter injuries are common place and a major cause of these injuries is 'slips, trips and falls'

Training is a large part of firefighting and the more knowledge gained in how and why firefighters make mistakes, the more refined training and instructing of new and experienced firefighters can become.

Much research based on scenario training rather than actual incidents, due to the unpredictable nature of the job.

There are both volunteer and career firefighters within Australia, yet expectations on firefighter performance differ greatly between these positions. There is also a vast difference between structural firefighting (more common in career firefighters who regularly wear Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) and wildfire suppression (more common in volunteer firefighters who wear basic Personal Protective Clothing).

Decision making is also a major part of firefighting from a Crew Leader and IMT perspective-how does fatigue impact on both of these positions?

Very limited research into night shift firefighters and the tasks they tend to perform (back burning operations).

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Multiple factors can impact on firefighter's fatigue levels, with a combination of factors causing different responses in each individual

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Multiple factors can impact on firefighter's fatigue levels, with a combination of factors causing different responses in each individual

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A variety of factors can influence fatigue of firefighters including sleep, work activity, hydration, nutrition, heat, smoke, fitness and experience.

Each of these particular factors has its own variability when it comes to influencing fatigue in an individual.

A combination of these factors can impact individuals in a vastly different condition-therefore it is the individual's responsibility to manage their fatigue, whilst also being a crew looking out for one another.

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Wearing SCBA and full PPC in heat can cause changes in gait, resulting in a higher likelihood of falling due to fatigue

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Wearing SCBA and full PPC in heat can cause changes in gait, resulting in a higher likelihood of falling due to fatigue

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Whilst wearing SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus) and full PPC in heat, subjects were not found to be affected in their general spatio-temporal gait.  However, some gait characteristics were affected, resulting in a higher likelihood of falling.

This particular study showed subjects having high heart rates, high core temperatures and a high perceived level of exhaustion-as a result of dehydration and high exercise levels.

This study indicates that heat and dehydration plays a role in general motor skills and the ability to perform work. Just walking on the treadmill in heat conditions indicated high fatigue.

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Whilst heat impacts on physiological response of the body it does not necessarily impact on motor skill performance in short duration

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Whilst heat impacts on physiological response of the body it does not necessarily impact on motor skill performance in short duration

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Firefighters work in a variety of weather conditions, though most are in warm to hot.

Firefighters also perform a wide variety of tasks when on the fire ground that vary from hose work, to raking to walking distances lighting bush for a back burn.

This study has shown that heat does impact on the physiological response of the body but does not impact as heavily on motor skills as many would expect.  This may be due to the increased fluid intake of those in the hot conditions.

This study showed that firefighters can sustain, if not improve their performance in both minimal and high temperatures, possibly from the consistent rest breaks as is to be expected when working on a fire ground.

Further research is required on whether this would be sustained over multiple days.

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PPC and PPE Impacts on Gait and Performance-which can result in faster fatigue and less efficiency on the fire ground

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PPC and PPE Impacts on Gait and Performance-which can result in faster fatigue and less efficiency on the fire ground

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Personal Protective Clothing (PPC) and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are known to impact on a firefighter's gait and ability to perform tasks.

Slips, trips and falls can be caused by a variety of factors including personal factors (including age, experience, training, etc.), environmental and firefighting specific tasks.

This study showed that fatigue caused by firefighting tasks in PPC resulted in an increase in movement errors.

Difficult to balance firefighter safety based on PPC worn vs work efficiency

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Fatigue affects all roles within a firefighting operation

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Fatigue affects all roles within a firefighting operation

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This study examines various roles on the fire ground and how fatigue from lack of sleep and/or shift length impacts on each role differently.

Despite shift lengths being restricted, many roles perform duties for longer than the 12 hours specified, particularly at the beginning of a major bushfire.

Night shift often has higher fatigue levels due to the circadian rhythm being affected when attempting to sleep during the day.  Accommodation needs to be tailored for those working night shift to ensure sleep is a possibility during the day.

Also higher fatigue levels experienced by those with specific skill tasks, including those involved in IMT (Incident Management Team).

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Exercise induced fatigue has immediate negative impact but long term benefits are substantial

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Exercise induced fatigue has immediate negative impact but long term benefits are substantial

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Fire ground activities have a high impact on a person's physiology-increased heart rate, rise in lactate and requires adequate aerobic capacity.  General fitness is required to complete fire ground tasks.

Exercise induced fatigue has a negative impact on firefighter's physical abilities when exercise done immediately prior to a fire call.

Immediate performance is negatively impacted by exercise induced fatigue, however the long term benefits are quite substantial with endurance increasing.  Those who train and exercise regularly show a much greater efficiency when completing demanding tasks.

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Fatigue from reduced sleep caused from a variety of factors and is more evident over multi-day deployments

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Fatigue from reduced sleep caused from a variety of factors and is more evident over multi-day deployments

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Sleep quantity and quality is important, particularly in multi-day bushfire operations due to prolonged exposures as it is a requirement for survival.

Most research on fatigue based on daytime shifts and fire ground firefighters.  More research is required into night shift fatigue and personnel in other roles in fire fighting operations (including Incident Management Team).

Both cognitive and physical performance shown to decline over multi-day deployments but less studies have examined cognitive impact of fatigue.

Suggests that further research required on potential external factors that may impact on stress and fatigue that may not be evident in these studies, including employment.

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Sleep in wildland firefighters what do we know and why does it matter[6064].pdf