I was a paid on call firefighter for 8 years until I was injured in the line of duty and then was retired. I am currently studying occupational health and safety through Ryerson University in Toronto Ontario Canada. The department I worked for was in my opinion fairly busy for a paid on call department we protected about 35,000 people and our station averaged about 250 calls a year. My experiences with the department have lead me to the field of occupational health and safety, my studies in this field have really opened my eyes to what firefighters are exposed to and how the system of occupational health and safety in both Canada and the U.S. is not set up to take care of firefighters, in my opinion the system of occupational health & safety is set up to protect workers working in an environment that has a certain amount of stability and protection built into the work being done most of the time these types of protections cannot be afforded to the firefighters dealing with emergency situations. The compensation laws coincide and are based on health and safety law so you can see how if the OH&S laws are not protecting the firefighters this will have an effect on how compensation is applied to firefighting. I recently have tried to find a support group for firefighters in regards to their health and safety and have had no luck so I created a facebook page and am hoping to get enough interest to start a formal association. Please look over the page and post any comments or ideas for its improvement.

Thanks

Chris

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Injure...80512605299900