Editor's Note: The IAFF has issued a safety advisory about Glutathione saying there are no published scientific studies providing evidence that it reduces PFAS levels or oxidative stress associated with fire fighters’ occupational exposures.

Aug. 16 -- Once the Old Trails fire broke out and raced east, ravaging forests and eventually neighborhoods, Spokane Fire Department spokesman Justin de Ruyter knew it would be a historically devastating day for Spokane.

It was the type of day firefighters could die.

But once night fell Aug. 1, and after hours of heroic firefighting, the winds started to soften, and de Ruyter, who had been on the front lines of the blaze, had a positive thought.

"I just remember thinking, like, 'OK, we didn't kill any of our firefighters today,'" de Ruyter said. "We're going to get through this without killing anybody."

His relief lasted seconds as his mind raced to a more sobering thought: "Who's the first one that's going to die of cancer in two to five years?"

Many firefighters battled flames without respiratory protection and were exposed to toxins, which de Ruyter described as the "worst of the worst," emanating from the wildland and structure fires.

He said firefighters dispatched to the brush fires didn't have time to go back to their stations to retrieve proper breathing equipment and vehicles to fight the full-blown wildland-urban interface fires.

For years, firefighters have known cancer is the biggest threat to their health, but they didn't think they could do anything about it.

Two California-based nonprofits provided hope through treatment last week for hundreds of local firefighters and members of law enforcement exposed to the three Spokane fires and other Eastern Washington blazes that continue to burn.

The first responders, almost all firefighters, sat in a white medical tent at the Spokane County Fairgrounds, home of the fire incident command post. They received glutathione, a naturally occurring antioxidant produced in organs, through nebulizers and IVs to rid the harmful toxins from their bodies.

"This has kind of been the first time somebody's been able to come in and say, 'Hey, there's something here you can try,'" said de Ruyter, who received daily treatment last week for his symptoms from the fire.

The glutathione compound being offered to firefighters is not approved as a detoxifying agent by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. There is a lack of large randomized controlled studies that could confirm IV infusion of glutathione flushes toxins from the body.

Volunteer Fire Foundation and Integrative Health Action Network provided the treatment.

The organizations were born from the ashes of destructive fires in the late 2010s in California's Sonoma County, where the nonprofits are based, according to Jacqui Jorgeson, VFF founder and executive director, and Jenny Harrow-Keeler, IHAN cofounder and executive director.

The first was the Tubbs fire, which ripped through 37,000 acres of the Santa Rosa, California, area in 2017, destroying over 5,600 structures and killing 22 people.

The Kincade fire in 2019 burned 78,000 acres, destroyed 374 structures and injured four people.

"We've had this front-row view of what an urban catastrophic fire does to the community at large, and in particular, what it does to the firefighters who respond," Jorgeson said.

She said firefighters carry a heavy emotional burden when they watch their own community burn in front of them, like what just happened in Spokane.

It's compounded by the toxic exposure they receive while fighting the blazes.

In 2025, nearly 80% of International Association of Fire Fighters member line-of-duty deaths were from occupational cancer, according to the IAFF.

The Firefighter Cancer Support Network reports that firefighters have a 9% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and a 14% higher risk of dying from cancer than the general U.S. population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Jorgeson said the California Interagency Incident Management team that led the Spokane fires this month invited VFF and IHAN to Spokane to treat firefighters after the California team members were impressed with the nonprofits' effective treatment on Los Angeles-area firefighters who battled the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires last year.

It was the organizations' first deployment outside of California.

"This is something that has come from ( Chris Holder) that is now having ripple effects across the country as people hear about this, because up until now, there have been zero known interventions for their exposure," Jorgeson said. "It's just been a foregone conclusion of, like, it is what it is. It's just going to accumulate. Nothing I can do about it. This is kind of reframing what's possible for them."

How it works

Holder, IHAN director of clinical research and a naturopathic doctor, said glutathione, produced by a person's lungs, liver and kidneys, counters the damage caused by toxins that enter firefighters' bodies.

Holder's wife, Jen Riegel, is also a naturopathic doctor who co-founded IHAN and serves as the medical director.

Holder used IVs to administer 1,000 mg of the antioxidant to firefighters last week at the fairgrounds. Other first responders, many arriving from the fire line, sat at a table inside the tent and used a nebulizer for several minutes to take in 400 mg of glutathione.

The mist from the nebulizer goes directly into the lungs, where it helps break down mucus, removes toxins and promotes lung tissue healing, according to IHAN.

Holder said glutathione, called the "master antioxidant," will force toxins into the bloodstream where the liver can remove it from the body and start to reverse damage from oxidation.

Firefighters could choose whether they wanted to use a nebulizer, IV or both to administer the antioxidant, which he said is cheap and easy to make. Many firefighters, like de Ruyter, returned to the tent for several treatments last week.

In another white tent next to the glutathione tent, some firefighters used acupuncture to relieve stress and regulate their nervous system, allowing detox pathways to open and maximizing the glutathione's effectiveness.

"What you're seeing here is not what it looked like originally," Holder said. "This developed out of conversations with departments and us fixing our problems. We're endlessly tweaking this to make it run smoother and smoother."

During the five-day clinic last week at the fairgrounds, 600 people received treatment with 750 check-ins, showing that many people visited the tent more than once, according to Jorgeson.

She said the clinic, which ended Thursday , was packed throughout. Evergreen Naturopathic + Sanctuary Spa in Spokane continued treatments for first responders over the weekend.

Based on preliminary studies from other fires where Holder treated firefighters, three to six months of treatment is best for optimal results.

Holder said many firefighters last week reported the treatments made them feel better. He said the nonprofits collected post-treatment data from the firefighters as they cycled through the tents.

Holder said he believes the treatment is effective, but it is unproven.

"Nobody's formally studied it in firefighters," Holder said. "We believe we'll be the first. It's been used for other toxic applications."

Jorgeson said the organizations are collecting data from their treatment to develop a proof of concept they can deliver to a university research partner so a clinical trial can commence.

IHAN ran a 12-week pilot program to evaluate glutathione-based detoxification on Northern California firefighters, according to the nonprofit.

Firefighters underwent baseline toxin screening, which revealed elevated levels of 33 toxins on average, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as forever chemicals, before treatment. After treatment, 20 of those toxins returned to the normal range. Of 12 elevated PFAS markers at baseline, the majority normalized or significantly declined.

"These results point to glutathione's central role in facilitating elimination of persistent environmental contaminants across multiple toxin classes," the nonprofit wrote.

Harrow-Keeler said the Sonoma County Fire Chiefs Association provides funding for the two nonprofits to detoxify Sonoma firefighters.

Holder hopes early intervention with glutathione knocks down the cancer rate in firefighters, but that's one of the areas they want to study to confirm.

"The faster I get the carcinogens out of these guys, the less cancer we're gonna have. It's as good as that."

Holder said firefighters expressed gratitude and hope for the treatment in Spokane.

"This is the first time where they're like, 'OK, we feel like we can do something,'" he said. "And then it's on us. We got to prove that it's scientifically accurate, so we're on it."

'An added bonus'

De Ruyter said the treatment appeared to be effective after he visited the medical tent several days last week. Before the treatment, he said he was unable to take full breaths, sweated profusely at night and had brain fog from the fire he helped fight.

De Ruyter expressed his views on glutathione independently from his role with the Spokane Fire Department.

He said the brain fog he and several other firefighters complained of cleared at the end of their first day of treatment.

His other symptoms cleared or improved since he started treatment one week ago. He attributed his health improvement to glutathione and his body naturally healing over the two weeks since the fires started.

"My acute symptoms are over," he said.

A group of Spokane firefighters was sitting near the entrance of the glutathione treatment tent Aug. 10.

None of them used the treatment before that day but hoped it would relieve their minor symptoms and help clear out toxins they absorbed over their years of firefighting, including this month fighting the Spokane fires.

"I think it's really cool that these guys recognize the exposure that we're getting, that somebody sees that and wants to do something to help us," said Mallory Haugen, a Spokane firefighter. "I mean, people see the fire part of it, and that's obviously pretty scary, but the other part firefighters deal with is that long-term stuff."

Haugen, who has asthma, said her lungs felt tight from the recent fires she fought, but they felt better after using the nebulizer.

She said the air got so smoky on the Old Trails fire that she held a nozzle up to her face trying to take a breath, which didn't work very well.

Haugen said she thinks about toxin exposure quite a bit. She has young children at home and doesn't want to expose them to anything harmful.

"Anything that's supposed to help, I'm at least gonna give it a try," she said of the new treatment.

Like de Ruyter, Ian Eliason, a Washington state Department of Natural Resources firefighter, said he couldn't take a full breath after fighting fires north of Spokane, but the treatment already helped.

"I feel like I'm getting there now, a little closer at least," he said of his regular breathing.

Still, Eliason said he hadn't had time to rest because of the Eastern Washington fires.

"We've been too busy for that," Eliason said. "So yeah, you don't really notice (symptoms) when there's all that adrenaline going."

He said it's "cool" there's a treatment option available, but he hasn't been worried about firefighting affecting his future health.

"It's just an added bonus," he said of the treatment. "I mean, it's a little bit of a relief, I guess you could call it."

Even before the Spokane fires broke out, Carl Raymond, a Spokane fire equipment operator and 27-year veteran of the department, said he coughs every morning to clear his lungs.

"That's something I've developed as I've worked here, and they're saying it's supposed to help with that," he said of glutathione.

Spokane fire Lt. Danny Betz said he uses saunas and other methods to detoxify, but admitted he didn't know much about glutathione.

He said he knew going into firefighting his risk for cancer was greater.

"But it's the job," Betz said. "I think anything we can do to reduce that risk is good."

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