LOS ANGELES — Five years ago, Capt. Derek Biering received an unexpected lung cancer diagnosis.
“I don’t have a history of lung cancer in my family," Biering said. "I didn’t grow up around parents that smoked. I was not a smoker, but I had been in the fire service at the time for 24 years and so it was a lot of exposures that I had.”
Even though Biering had no symptoms, a kidney scan revealed a tumor in his lung. Now, Biering is using his experience to advocate for firefighter health.
“It took me getting this cancer and then really becoming involved and invested in firefighter cancer research,” he said. “I do have this awareness, and so now I feel I need to pay it forward.”
Biering now serves as the fire department liaison for a first-of-its-kind cancer research study on firefighters who worked in the Palisades and Eaton fires. The initiative — a collaboration between Cal Fire, the University of Arizona, the Wildfire Conservancy and the National Firefighter Cancer Cohort Study — aims to track how exposure during wildland and urban interface fires increases cancer risk.
John Gulotta, fire service research liaison for the University of Arizona, said the long-term study is measuring more than 800,000 biomarkers in firefighters.
“When everything burns, we really don’t know what we were exposed to,” Gulotta said. “The goal is to support firefighters — give them information on their exposures — but also follow them over time to catch changes in real time.”
Station 38 is one of many sites hosting blood draws for some of the 7,500 firefighters enrolled in the study.
Jim Larsen, a firefighter and paramedic with the Orange County Fire Authority who responded to the Palisades Fire, said he joined the study to help improve firefighter safety.
“Make things better than they are now,” Larsen said. “As far as protocols, equipment design, that sort of thing.”
Currently, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual lung cancer screenings for adults ages 50 to 80 with a 20-pack-year smoking history. However, Dr. Sara Ghandehari, a pulmonologist at Cedars-Sinai, said firefighters’ repeated exposure to smoke and toxins puts them at an even higher risk.
“We need to make sure that they have protection or really get to a point of helping them check their lung function, getting them into screening programs, forcing our policymakers to include them in screening practices,” Ghandehari said.
Biering hopes the research will lead to changes in local and federal policies. But in the meantime, he is focused on helping firefighters take preventive measures.
“We need to educate them on things they can do to hopefully have a long career and be able to retire happy and enjoy their families — and what we all deserve to do,” Biering said.
Now cancer-free for five years, Biering and his colleagues are proving that firefighters aren’t just battling flames — they’re fighting for their health and the future of their profession.