Awake, Sleepy and Hot Project

The operational readiness of volunteer firefighters

A/Prof Sally Ferguson, Dr. Brad Aisbett, Dr. Bradley Smith

Ngarkat burn lighting up Bushfires are a real and ruthless threat to the lives and livelihoods of individuals living in rural and urban fringe areas. Volunteer and career firefighters charged with managing this annual threat face a number of occupational and environmental stressors. Long hours during both day and night shift, often with reduced sleep opportunities, are common. Across work shifts, firefighters are required to perform intermittent, intense physical labour often in hot and smoky conditions, at the same time making critical decisions in often life-threatening situations. In isolation, factors such as heat, smoke (or its constituent elements), and sleep disruption can have a detrimental impact on cognitive and physical work capacity. To date, however, no study has assessed the combined effect that these multiple stressors have on human performance. Such information is critical for rural fire agencies to manage the health, safety and productivity of personnel during bushfire suppression. Thus, the aim of this research is to investigate the impact of multiple fireground stressors (i.e., sleep disruption, heat and smoke) in isolation and in combination, on firefighters’ physiological responses, and physical and cognitive work performance across a simulated three-day bushfire suppression ‘tour’.

For more more information, download the Firefighters information sheet or the Agencies information sheet.

We need volunteer firefighters to be part of our project

We are interested in how environmental stressors such as heat, smoke and lack of sleep contribute to performance and safety when on the fire-ground.

We are looking for volunteer firefighters to take part in a fire-ground ‘simulation’ capturing the performance of tasks (mental, including reaction time and memory and physical, including hose rolling, raking and hose dragging and repositioning) and sleep of volunteers across consecutive shifts (72 hrs). Sleep and awake information will be collected before, during and after the simulation experience.

Participants will be required to ‘live’ in one of our simulated environments for four nights. We are currently seeking volunteers to take part throughout 2013:

At the CFA facility in Box Hill, VIC.

June 12-16	August 7 - 11	October 30- November 3	November 27 - December 1
July 10-14	August 14 - 18	November 6-10
July 31 - August 4	October 2 - 6	November 13-17

At the CFS Training College in Brukunga, SA.

March 6-10	May 1-5	Aug 14-18	October 2-6
April 3-7	June 26-30	August 28- Sept 1	Oct 30-Nov 3
April 10-14	July 3-7	Sept 25-29

We are able to come and talk to you and your brigade or group about the project if required.

All participants are encouraged to consider a medical check before participating.

Ngarkat_research1small 400 If you are interested in participating or finding out more information, please contact Sarah Jeffries, Bradley Smith or Sally Ferguson at the Appleton Institute, Central Queensland University