Firefighters work to keep cool in extreme heat

Firefighters in mid-Missouri are being extra cautious in the extreme heat while out on calls.

The high temperatures can take a toll on their bodies while they are in gear and fighting fires much quicker than others out in the heat.

“It’s just a matter of minutes when it’s this hot, so we really have to limit the time that we’ve got in that equipment,” said Assistant Fire Chief Brad Frazier, of the Columbia Fire Department.

The gear affects the way firefighters’ bodies try to cool down.

“It’s made to keep, you know, the heat from us, so when heat can’t penetrate, it can’t escape either. And so, your body is just producing heat itself. It’s trying to cool itself down, so we start sweating. We’re covered, really, from head to toe, no exposed skin, so your body can’t cool itself the normal way,” said Assistant Fire Chief Gale Blomenkamp, of the Boone County Fire Protection District.

Both the Columbia Fire Department and the Boone County Fire Protection District said staying hydrated is important.

“One of the things we do throughout the day is drink a lot of fluids,” Frazier said.

The departments also have equipment to keep their firefighters and citizens cool.

“The customer service van behind me, we’ll use that a lot of times during inclement weather, whether it’s really hot or it’s really cold. In the case of the summer months, it gets us in an air-conditioned environment, lets them rehab and get back to a normal body temperature,” he said.

The Boone County Fire Protection District has something similar.

“We have a support unit that’s air-conditioned. It’s like an ambulance. It’s a large box truck that we use that has vans, has cooling fans. We have pop-up tents where we can put up if we need to, and then we also carry water on all of our firetrucks,” said Blomenkamp.

Firefighters from both departments keep a close eye on one another to look for signs of heat illness and rotate more often than normally when fighting fires.

Neither department has had a heat-related incident during this heat wave.