Did you know that a firefighter’s most significant health risk in a fire station isfromvehicle emissions? Every time a vehicle is started up in a fire station, exhaust emissions cause damage to your building fabric, decoration and your employee’s health and welfare. The emissions increase the chance of cancer, strokes, heart attacks and emphysema for both long term and short term health.

Everyday we inhale airborne particles without even thinking about it. The particles enter our respiratory system and fast into our lungs and remain there. Gases are also transported into our blood vessels, which in the worse case can cause blood poisoning.

Vehicle emissions can either appear as a grey or black smoke, or be invisible. People can see particles down to 20 microns. 90% of exhaust particles are smaller than 1 micron. In comparison, a strand of human hair is 70 microns thick. This sometimes misleads people as many believe that if they don’t see the emission then there is no danger to their health. The new generation of ‘clean’ diesel engines with their invisible emissions has contributed to this problem.