Physical employment standard for Canadian wildland fire fighters; identifying and characterising critical initial attack response tasks

Ergonomics. 2018 Oct;61(10):1299-1310. doi: 10.1080/00140139.2018.1464211. Epub 2018 May 7.

Abstract

Physical employment standards evaluate whether a worker possesses the physical abilities to safely and efficiently perform all critical on-the-job tasks. Initial Attack (IA) wildland fire fighters (WFF) must perform such critical tasks in all terrains. Following a physical demands analysis, IA WFF (n = 946 out of a possible 965) from all fire jurisdictions ranked the most demanding tasks and identified mountains, muskeg and rolling hills as the most challenging terrains. Experimental trials found the oxygen cost (mean ± SD V˙ O2 mL·kg-1·min-1) while performing the hose pack back carry to be 40 ± 7 in steep mountains, 34 ± 5 in muskeg and 34 ± 2 in rolling hills (n = 168). Back-carrying and hand-carrying a 28.5 kg pump, back-carrying a 25 kg hose pack and advancing charged hose were the most demanding tasks. Performing the same emergency IA WFF tasks was significantly more demanding in mountains (p ≤ 0.05), and these higher demands must be taken into account when developing a physical employment standard for Canadian wildland fire fighters. Practitioner Summary: Physical employment standards evaluate whether an applicant or incumbent possesses the physical and physiological abilities to safely and efficiently perform the critical on-the-job tasks. This paper details the process used to undertake a physical demands analysis and characterise tasks for the development of a circuit test and fitness employment standard for IA WFF.

Keywords: BFOR; Occupation; fitness screening; job fitness.

MeSH terms

  • Canada
  • Employment / standards*
  • Firefighters*
  • Humans
  • Physical Fitness*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Wildfires*