Subcommittee adopts bill requiring suicide reporting, gear changes and 42-hour workweek limit for firefighters

House Bill 929, "Firefighter Health and Safety," won unanimous approval from the Insurance & Banking Subcommittee after sponsor testimony and public support from firefighter organizations.

Representative Booth, the bill sponsor, told the subcommittee the measure updates Florida’s firefighter safety statute to require departments to report firefighter suicides and to instruct the chief financial officer and state fire marshal to establish mental‑health best practices including resiliency, stress management and peer support. "This provision will improve tracking and prevention efforts statewide," Booth said, adding the bill also would require departments to inform personnel about chemical hazards in issued gear and encourage replacement with safer alternatives when commercially available.

The bill’s nut graf: sponsors and advocates said the measure combines workplace safety, mental‑health support and limited scheduling reforms to reduce long‑term physical and psychological harm to firefighters. An amendment (barcode 088855) was adopted without objection; it clarifies that replacement with less‑toxic gear would apply to new purchases and may occur in phased replacement cycles similar to current practice and refines what "readily available" means. The amendment also incorporated technical edits suggested by the chief financial officer's office to distinguish "occupational illness" from "occupational disease" and broadened cancer decontamination education to include chemical hazards in gear.

Committee debate was brief and supportive. Members thanked firefighters and highlighted the bill’s focus on suicide prevention, cancer decontamination, access to mental health care and limits on regularly scheduled workweeks (the bill promotes schedules that do not exceed 42 hours per regularly scheduled work week). Wayne Bernoska of the Florida Professional Firefighters testified in favor of the measure.

Representative Booth closed with a lengthy appeal stressing cumulative chemical exposure and trauma as threats to career‑long health: "It's not the fire that'll get you ... it's the little things that accumulate in your body, and 10 years after you retire, that's when you're gonna die," Booth said. The committee then called the roll and reported the bill favorably.

Ending note: with the subcommittee vote completed, the bill will be placed in the committee package and advance to the next stage of consideration as provided by House rules.