Earlier this year, the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer (NFR) went offline in the wake of massive layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services. But since restarting in May, enrollment has surged by roughly 8,000.
The number of current and former firefighters – structure, volunteer and wildland – who have enrolled in the NFR has now passed 30,000. It’s an impressive milestone, but not the only recent one.
“The NFR is the largest group of firefighters ever assembled to study their cancer risk,” said Kenny Fent, an industrial hygienist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health who oversees the NFR.
It recently surpassed an earlier study that had just shy of 30,000 participants, the vast majority of whom were male structure firefighters from a handful of large municipal departments. Fent called that work “pivotal,” adding that it “got people's attention that this is an issue in the fire service.” Based on that study and other research, a World Health Organization body classified firefighting as a carcinogen in 2022. But because of limited enrollee diversity, it had limits.
“Our group of firefighters is much broader than that,” Fent said about the NFR’s population so far. “We have firefighters all across the country from large, you know, municipal fire departments to rural fire departments to wildland firefighters, volunteers, various demographic groups.”
The NFR’s online portal shows that nearly 20% of respondents have wildland experience, and the cohort includes thousands of women and enrollees from every state in the country. Wildland firefighters have been a particularly difficult population to study.
“One of the key pieces and benefits of the National Firefighter Registry is that it is specifically recruiting or making sure that we reach those populations,” said Sara Jahnke, the director of the Center for Fire, Rescue and EMS Health Research at the nonprofit National Development & Research Institutes - USA who helped develop the NFR’s survey questions.
“There's really just a lot that we don't know,” she added. “And it really kind of hinders our prevention and our early detection.”
Given the previous shutdown, Jahnke said she’s still worried about the future of the NFR.
“If they can shut down something that the same administration previously wrote into law, I just don't think anything is safe,” she said. “And I feel like no one can rest on their laurels, because we have so much work left to do.”
The Firefighter Cancer Registry Act, which mandated the creation of the NFR, was signed by President Donald Trump in his first term.
But Fent said he’s feeling more confident. He pointed to the “overwhelming” response from the firefighter community to the NFR’s shutdown that he credits in part with the “relatively quick” restart, as well as “full support and commitment” from HHS leadership.
“I feel like we're in a really good spot now,” he said.
“We're also not done enrolling firefighters,” he added. “In fact, I would say we're really just getting started.”
The goal, according to Fent, is to get to 200,000.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
