ABSTRACT
Considerable information is available that substantiates firefighting as one of the most physically demanding and hazardous of all civilian occupations (Kales et al., 2007), implying variable working conditions and unpredictable and heavy physical demands (Bos et al., 2004). During the 1999-2002 period, the Italian Fire Fighting Corp (VV.FF., 2004) reported 685387 requests for intervention (1% rescues, 6% structural collapses, 7% car accidents, 7% water accidents, 26% fire accidents, 46% various, and 7% unnecessary) performed under high time pressure (mean delay from alarm: 11 minutes; mean duration of intervention: 45 minutes), and emotional stress related to both the victims’ (safe: n=20661; injured: n=10081; deaths: n=4453) and the firefighters’ personal safety (injuries: n=261; deaths: n=24). To reduce the risk of injuries, firefighters wear protective clothing, which is typically heavy (i.e., 11-23 kg), thick, multi-layered and bulky. Furthermore, it exacerbates the challenge of thermoregulation, decreasing the rate of heat exchange due to limited water vapour permeability across the clothing layers (Smith et al., 1997, 2001, 2005; Smith and Petruzzello, 1998; Baker et al., 2000; McLellan and Selkirk, 2004) They also wear a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), which causes a 25% increase in energy expenditure (Louhevaara et al., 1995) and 22% and 75% reductions of tolerance time at low and high working intensity, respectively (White and Hodous, 1987).
