Firefighting has been officially declared as a cancer causing profession, which Australian union representatives said should spark a push for further government support.
The World Health Organisation on Friday announced the profession as cancer causing. United Firefighters Union national secretary Greg McConville said there were multiple ways firefighters could be supported.
"We need to protect firefighter health and safety from recruit to retirement," he said.
"The first thing is we need to establish baseline testing for recruit firefighters as soon as they start their training, we need to conduct that health screening at regular intervals right throughout their career."
The second area of support was to "do everything to protect firefighters through their career" including better uniforms and assessing what materials are used to make products.
"We need to seriously review what goes into buildings and motorcars. Cars are highly toxic, thousands of toxins are emitted in car fires and we've got the emerging threat of lithium ion batteries and the challenges which they pose for firefighters as well," Mr McConville said.
The firefighting profession was escalated by the World Health Organisation's International Agency for Research on Cancer from Group 2B which is possibly carcinogenic to humans to Group 1 declaring the profession as carcinogenic to humans.
For Canberra, Mr McConville said fire stations don't have adequate diesel particulate removal which they have "known for years ... we can do something about that" along with the layout of fire stations.
"Ainslie fire station, for example, has approved plans and approved works to make a [retrofit] happen. The government identified money for that in 2018 but the works haven't happened," he said.
Compensation for firefighters with cancer is another area of improvement Mr McConville said needed to change.
"Currently, there are 12 cancers covered by workers compensation. Provinces in Canada have recently expanded that to 19 to include thyroid, pancreatic, skin, cervical, ovarian, penile and lung cancers," he said.
"Australian governments should do that right now."
Mr McConville remained positive recruits would keep coming in Canberra and Australia despite the World Health Organisation's declaration, as "the risks of firefighting within the Australian population are relatively well known".
"We've been advocating this for a long time and to the credit of fire services, they equip recruits very well through the recruit course to deal with everything they can," he said.
"I spoke to the current crop of recruit graduates ... I told them when you hear about this, what I don't want you to do is worry, what I want you to do is remember everything you've been taught in your training which is intended to keep you safe."
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