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Firefighter urges state funding to expand California firefighter cancer research
Summary
A Los Angeles County firefighter and researcher told lawmakers the state’s firefighter cancer research program needs larger, long‑term cohort studies and sustained funding to understand health risks from intense structure‑and‑wildland firefighting exposures.
Derek Erwin, an LA County firefighter and adjunct professor who conducts firefighter cancer research at UCLA, urged the Legislature to expand funding for the California Firefighter Cancer Prevention and Research Program so researchers can establish large longitudinal studies and develop interventions.
Erwin told the joint hearing that firefighting is classified as a Group 1 occupational carcinogen and that California firefighters face unique combined exposures from municipal and wildland/urban‑interface incidents. He said the 2023 enactment of AB 700 established the firefighter cancer program and funded several research projects with $300,000–$750,000 grants, but that larger cohort studies—on the scale of NIH‑funded projects and costing millions annually—are required to identify biological mechanisms and effective exposure‑reduction strategies.
Erwin said recent urban conflagrations in the Palisades and Eaton incidents exposed firefighters to prolonged smoke and combustion products from structures, vehicles and unknown contents for days and weeks, and that those exposures drive known carcinogenic mechanisms even though specific long‑term outcomes in California cohorts remain uncertain.
He asked the committees to support continued and expanded funding for the AB 700 program to create multi‑year, large cohort studies that could be run in partnership with University of California researchers and medical centers, and to ensure community‑engaged research partners are included.
Legislators and other panelists responded by thanking first responders and acknowledging the need for longer‑term health monitoring and research to support firefighter health care and compensation programs if adverse outcomes are confirmed.
