They remembered Brandy Allinience on what would have been her 40th birthday. “Everybody doesn’t have that heart,” her friend Javonte Brown told those who gathered. “She looked at everything with joy, even in the face of adversity.”
Allinience, a Houston firefighter since 2014, died in December 2025 of cancer attributed to her job. Local station KHOU reported she was the fourth known area first responder to succumb to the disease that month.
It’s not news that firefighters face a cancer risk that’s elevated by their jobs. A major NIOSH analysis published in 2013 found they had a rate of cancer diagnosis 9% higher than the general population and a rate of cancer-related deaths 14% higher. More recently, long-term follow-up research by the American Cancer Society reinforced an increased mortality risk for most kinds of cancer, including skin (58% higher for firefighters) and kidney (40% higher). “Our findings support the growing body of research linking firefighter exposures to cancer risk,” wrote lead author Lauren Teras, Ph.D., senior scientific director for the ACS’ epidemiology research.
Continued efforts to protect firefighter health are vital, Teras added, through measures like screening, early detection and prevention.
Danger follows you home
A lot of effort, research and product development have gone into preventing exposures to carcinogens on fire scenes – but that’s not where firefighters spend most of their time. On an average 24-hour shift, according to MagneGrip, a prominent provider of exhaust-removal and air-filtration technologies for fire stations and other facilities, a firefighter may spend 10–14 hours in their station.
The quality of that station’s air thus matters a lot to firefighters’ health – especially if the exhaust from apparatus isn’t addressed. Created as diesel vehicles leave and return to the station, diesel exhaust – a stew of toxic compounds that includes carcinogenic particles both visible and too small to be seen – can not only linger in the apparatus bay but seep into living quarters. This can result in prolonged exposure that’s been most notably linked to lung and bladder cancers, and potentially other cancers as well. It can also settle and accumulate on surfaces, and toxic components can be inadvertently ingested or absorbed dermally.
Add that danger to the combustion byproducts, PFAS risk, gear contamination and other hazards that stalk firefighters, and you start to understand those cancer rates. In fact, the International Agency for Research on Cancer goes so far as to liken occupational exposure from the profession itself to a carcinogen.
“The idea is that just being a firefighter actually is a cause of cancer,” said Greg Roach, MagneGrip’s director of sales. “I think it’s the only profession they say that about, which is interesting. But if you’re a firefighter, you are being exposed to carcinogens all the time.”
Within stations, modern strategies to reduce that exposure include physical separation of bays and living spaces, gear decontamination and storage protocols, no-idling policies and regular wet cleaning. But perhaps the biggest difference can come with what MagneGrip offers as its complete clean air solution. This pairs its MagneGrip exhaust-removal system with its AirHAWK air-purification system.
What goes into a complete solution?
MagneGrip exhaust-removal systems connect to vehicles’ tailpipes or stacks through a magnetic coupling to capture their exhaust and vent it outside via a flexible exhaust hose and high-efficiency fan. Magnetic attachment of the hose is fast and simple, and capturing exhaust at the source is more effective than general ventilation, especially for ultrafine particles. Systems start when engines start, and as vehicles leave, the hoses – hung from a ceiling-based rail/track system – detach automatically. Upon return, hoses are quickly and easily attached from a standing position. These systems comply with relevant NFPA standards and NIOSH recommendations.
Several unique features distinguish MagneGrip systems. The company’s PRO Nozzle attaches quickly to varying tailpipe heights via new flex magnet technology. It mounts flush to the apparatus with an airtight seal and 90-degree angle that holds the hose alongside the vehicle, leaving more room around it. This was initially developed as a one-off solution for a department with a tight bay before being offered widely.
“It creates a huge space savings,” noted Paul Brinker, who leads MagneGrip’s marketing. “Apparatus bays can be extremely tight spacewise, and you have to think about emergency situations where you’re trying to scramble and jump up in the truck to get going. Not having some big hose dangling in your way is very helpful.”
The tailpipe adapter – kept small to ensure ground clearance – has an ambient air inlet ring to allow airflow that keeps exhaust temperatures down. The pull of the fan creates a vacuum that supplements the magnetic attachment and a silicone gasket for a 100% secure seal.
Within the hose, an internal stress cable transfers weight to the lifting elbow and balancer to prevent hose stretching and extend its life.
“Without that internal cable, the hoses stretch. And it won’t be instant, but over time you’ll find them lying on the ground,” said Roach. “Our cable takes all the stress instead, so our hoses always stay at the same spot because the metal doesn’t stretch.”
AirHAWK air-purification systems mount on ceilings, walls or surfaces and remove exhaust emissions, gases and other contaminants throughout stations by pulling pollutants from the air, trapping and neutralizing them, and returning clean air back. They use photocatalytic oxidation and UV radiation to destroy microbes and toxic organic compounds, a technology derived from the Department of Defense.
“If for some reason you can’t connect a source-capture system, it’s still important to have some air cleaning in effect,” explained Roach. “When you use the AirHAWK in combination with the MagneGrip system, you get a really good, clean environment where you have source capture and ambient cleaning of the bay area, so it’s very unlikely that you’ll have any particulate make its way into living areas.”
The AirHAWK system’s four-stage filtration process uses a prefilter to remove diesel exhaust particles; a primary HEPA filter; the photocatalytic oxidizer to handle microbes, mold spores and organic compounds; and a gas-phase carbon filter to trap and absorb VOCs. It is suitable for the unique designs and constraints of older firehouses as well as new.
Measure and document the improvement
The final component of the complete clean air solution is quantifying the improvement. This is done through MagneGrip’s Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) system, which provides 24/7 air quality monitoring and displays its results on an intuitive online dashboard. Sensors track temperature, humidity, VOCs and hazardous contaminants such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in coarse, fine and ultrafine particles. “That lets us measure how clean the air is,” said Roach. “We partner with a company that provides integrated monitoring software, and they have a good web interface that allows remote viewing of physical spaces.”
Smart station design starts here
The company also provides free CAD services to help ensure new station builds consider air quality. It will work with architects and engineers as plans are developed. Cancer awareness is growing at this level, Roach noted, resulting in innovations such as zoned areas (e.g., cool, warm, hot) to separate apparatus bays from living quarters. Retrofitting an older building can be more difficult because designs are long complete and operations are established. “We can walk in and look at things and determine the best solution,” said Roach, “but their operations are usually set, and budgeting can be a challenge.”
Firehouse exhaust-removal and air-purification technologies are, however, quite compatible with the cancer-prevention priorities of top grant funding programs like the AFG (Assistance to Firefighters Grants).
A significant step toward safety
The rise of “clean” diesel may lull firefighters into a false sense of security. These engines use low-sulfur diesel with advanced emission controls like diesel particulate filters (DPFs) and are claimed to reduce particulate matter by 90% or more. EPA emission standards have required DPFs on new fire apparatus since 2007.
Researchers have disagreed on the filters’ effectiveness, however, and many require high engine temperatures to work properly, prompting questions about their effectiveness when leaving the station and following short runs.
“‘Clean’ diesel is a bit of a misnomer,” said Roach. “It may look clean, but now the particles are smaller. The fact is, there hasn’t been enough study about the ultrafine particles to determine whether that diesel really is in fact ‘clean.’ Certainly the large particles may be reduced, but ultrafine particles are a very serious discussion point. Instead of that black soot being on the walls and your mustache, it’s now deeper inside your lungs, and that’s a bigger problem. So to our minds it’s even more of a reason to have a source capture system.”
NIOSH still recommends engineering controls for fire station bay exposures even with DPF technology.
For firefighters, there’s no guarantee any technology will stop them from getting cancer – what they’re aiming for is reducing the odds. For the risks of long-term exposure to carcinogens away from the fireground, a complete clean air solution in the fire station is a significant step toward safety.
“We know NIOSH and many other sources have deemed this necessary, but it’s just one piece of firefighters’ protection,” said Roach. “Exhaust is not the sole reason firefighters get cancer at a higher rate than the general population – there are any number of things they’re exposed to. Our job is to solve one important part of the puzzle.”
For more information, visit MagneGrip.
