WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER RESEARCH AND PROTECTION CENTER
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : a****w@f********s.o*g
Mission Statement
Fire Heroes is determined to improving industry standards for the health and wellbeing of ALL our cherished fire fighters and first responders, before and after their distinguished careers. Through strategic partnerships with Healthcare Information Technology Companies, research groups, and Foundations we will develop the resources needed to better understand toxic exposure risks and consequences that so many of our heroes face every day. Providing firefighting organizations as well as policy makers with better data of short and long-term health risks caused by on-the-job dangers, will help us protect our heroes on and off the job. Just like they do for us. The current state of the wildland fire industry will not be sufficient to match the growing threat of climate change driven wildfire severity. Growing a permanent professional workforce through better pay, improved short and long term protection, and sustained career paths is absolutely vital to protecting everything we love in this beautiful Country. The Wildland Firefighter Research and Protection Center will fight for the improvements our brave men and women need to protect us from devastating wildfires.
About This Cause
The Wildland Firefighter Research and Protection Center (the “Center”) is a brand-new non-profit corporation founded on October 25, 2021 under Oregon law. The Center was incorporated to address the fact that wildland firefighters are severely under protected from the dangers and long-term consequences of prolonged toxic exposure, putting them and their families at risk for cancer and other diseases. The idea for the Center was created a few years after its President (“Andrew”), a wildland firefighter of eight (8) years for the Oregon Department of Forestry, was diagnosed with urothelial carcinoma (a form of bladder cancer) at age 32 that his doctors said was most commonly caused by smoke and chemical exposure. Andrew was otherwise healthy, physically fit, and a non-smoker. Andrew was denied workers compensation benefits and was forced to bear the financial, emotional, and physical burden of treatment for his cancer on his own. This experience made him imagine how many young firefighters across the country could be saved if we could improve the general understanding and overall consensus of the dangers that they face and find a way to better educate our community of ways to protect them. To begin to address these issues, the Center’s plans to build, operate, and maintain a national data registry specifically designed for wildland firefighters. The main goals of the registry will be too: • Collect heath data on current and former wildland firefighters • Make this data widely assessable to scientists, researchers, academics, physicians (among others) to contribute to and aid in the scientific understanding of the short and long-term health consequences wildland firefighters face; and • Use this data and registry as a tool to educate our wildland firefighters, our community and our leaders on the appropriate steps to be taken to better protect our wildland firefighters during and after their careers. As wildfires become a greater threat to millions of Americans every year, it is critical that we act now to implement more protections for our heroes of wildland fire. The Center strongly believes that by providing firefighter organizations and policy makers with a better idea of the short and long-term health risks caused by on-the-job dangers through data collection and educational efforts, we will be more prepared as a country to take the necessary steps to protect our heroes on and off the job. Just like they do for us. Present Activities 1) Build, develop, and pilot the data registry Currently, all planning and activities are primary related to forming strategic partnerships, raising funds, and developing and designing the functionality of the registry, which does not currently exist to date. To develop the data registry, the Center has conducted and are planning the following: • Forming strategic partnerships with experienced health information technology vendors and health policy consultants to assist the Center in developing a multi-purpose data registry application • Developing and piloting the primary functionalities of the registry, will include: o Secure forms management functionality Manage the collection of consent preferences and authorizations for sharing and disclosing data to and from the registry Collect and manage health assessment forms from current and former wildland firefighters • E.g. - smoke and toxin exposure forms, general health assessments, social needs assessment forms, and family health history o Analytic services to extract data from the electronic forms to provide population-level insights Areas of interest may include (but not limited to) smoke exposure trends, diagnosis of certain cancers at various ages, etc. o Enable bidirectional communication through a secure application between current and former wildland firefighters with different types of end users Some examples may include: • Preventative health coaching service (contracted through the Center) to deliver reminders for: o Smoke Exposure tracking, PPE cleaning automated reminders, quick educational resources guides, general health screening reminders (including cancer screening), and disease-specific information curated to individuals who have reported a diagnosis in the registry • Researchers conducting clinical trials that wildland firefighters may be eligible for o Master data management services to ensure accurate data matching Approximately 80% of the Center’s time will be allocated to planning and developing the registry to include the functionalities described above over the next 6-12 months. These efforts will be funded through a combination of charitable donations, in-kind donations, services (through fee’s for training and education), grants, and corporate sponsorships. Building and developing the registry will be the Center’s primary expense (other than routine administrative expenses) up and until the registry is built and operating sufficiently. The development of the data registry is at the core of the Center’s exempt purpose as the registry will be used as a tool too: 1) contribute to the scientific understanding of the short and long-term health consequences that wildland firefighters face by disclosing data to researchers, academic institutions, and health care providers; 2) educate wildland firefighters on ways to better protect themselves on and off the job (through health screening reminders, PPE cleaning automated reminders and educational resources and guides); and 3) educate the community, the public, and state officials on the steps needed to better protect our wildland firefighters. Future Activities When the Center’s immediate goals have been met and the data registry is operational, the Center’s true work will begin. To date, the Center’s future planned activities will include: 1) Conduct a statewide outreach program to connect with current and former wildland firefighters and to share our mission and ask individuals to sign up and share their data with the registry o This will be accomplished through a combination of Andrew’s contacts through the Oregon Department of Forestry, social media, and potentially an advertisement campaign o Funded by individual donations, corporate sponsorships and/or grants 2) Engage and partner with other non-profits, foundations and research institutions engaged in this type of work to share our data and/or grow our registry o This will be done internally through research efforts, maintaining a website, and no funding will be needed to accomplish this task. o Approximately 30% of the Centers efforts will be delegated to this task 3) Fund a documentary on wildland firefighters as an educational tool to increase public awareness of these issues o The Center will predominately initiate these efforts internally by creating the narrative and contracting with industry experts as needed to produce the film o This will be funded by donations and potential partnerships. o Approximately 25% of the Center’s time would be engaged towards this effort. 4) Advocate for increased protections for wildland firefighters to the Oregon legislature o Present using a combination of our data, the registry, and our research to advocate for heighted protections under Oregon law for wildland firefighters o This would be conducted by the Center’s President during Oregon’s legislative session in either 2022 or 2023. o We don’t expect any funding would be needed for this type of activity. o Approximately 10-20% of the Center’s time would be engaged for these efforts. All of these activities listed above would further the Center’s exempt purpose by aiding to the scientific understanding of the dangers and health consequences wildland firefighters face and educating and advocating for the need for better protections during and after their careers. Financial Information We are essentially starting from scratch with our funding. The sources for the Centers income will be from fundraising events, corporate sponsorships, grants, and in-kind and charitable donations. The corporation will dispose of this income through decisions made by its board of directors or through the decisions of the duly elected treasurer, whose power to pay expenses is set out by the board or the Center’s bylaws in accordance too the corporation’s purpose.