America’s first responders put their lives on the line to protect their communities — and it shaves approximately 10 years off their life expectancy.
Despite the inevitable risk, practicing healthy lifestyle habits can help to protect longevity, experts say.
Mike Morlan, firefighter and district vice president at CAL FIRE 2881, spoke to Fox News Digital about prioritizing health in the line of duty.
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“For me, it’s personal,” said the Sacramento firefighter of nearly 30 years. “I lost both my parents to cancer … and I learned early in my career that heart disease and cancer are what take firefighters out.
“We don’t necessarily usually die in a fire. We die years later from what the job does to us.”
Morlan said that “shift after shift,” firefighters are exposed to smoke, toxins, carcinogens and extreme heat, leading to sleep disruptions and medical conditions.
“I’ve stood at memorials for people who have never made it to retirement,” he said. “Even for some of our members and firefighters who do retire — a year or two after that, that’s when they pass away. That really stays with you.”
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Dr. Eve Henry, chief medical officer at Hundred Health in California, said the fact that firefighters tend to die 10 years sooner than the general American population should be a “wake-up call” for those in the medical community.
“That’s not a marginal difference — it’s a decade of life lost,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“When you combine repeated exposure to toxic chemicals and carcinogens with the extreme physical and physiological stress of the job, it creates a perfect storm for chronic disease to accelerate much faster than it would in a typical office environment,” Henry said.
Acknowledging the risk is the first step to living longer, Morlan said.
“When we run into burning buildings, it’s really the invisible exposures over decades that threaten our lives,” he said. “Being strong doesn’t cancel out toxic exposures or sleep deprivation.”
The firefighter also recommends treating the body like “mission-critical equipment.”
“We inspect our rigs, and we inspect our equipment all the time. We’re always checking those boxes and making sure we’re ready to go,” he said. “And it shouldn’t be any different [with] our health.”
In addition to getting annual physicals, first responders may want to seek out biomarker testing and data tracking through wearable devices, Morlan suggested.
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Making small improvements to nutrition, exercise and recovery are also critical, he said.
“Longevity isn’t just one big overhaul — it’s consistent, informed decisions over time. If we maintain our bodies like we maintain our apparatus and our equipment, then we’ll extend a lot of our careers out there.”
Henry encourages first responders to treat their recovery with the same “clinical respect” they give their training.
“Sleep is the single most important variable in that equation,” she said. “I know how difficult that is with a firehouse schedule, but when you are off-shift, you have to be disciplined about a strict sleep environment to let your body repair the damage.”
Henry also recommends taking ownership of one’s health, and to not wait until “something breaks to fix it.”
“You need to understand your own biomarkers so you can spot the early warning signs of cardiovascular strain long before it becomes a crisis,” she advised.
The physician recommends that first responders start by focusing on three small, attainable measures, such as hitting a protein goal, cutting out alcohol or starting a strength-training routine.
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“If a plan is too aggressive … you’ll never actually adopt it into your daily life,” Henry warned. “It’s about making the changes that are realistic enough to stick.”
Henry also suggests adopting a “longevity stack” that can bridge gaps in a busy schedule, including supplements like creatine monohydrate for muscle and brain resilience. A “clean” protein powder can also help meet nutritional standards when a long shift interrupts the ability to eat a real meal, she said.
As the daughter of a New York firefighter, Henry said she’s witnessed firsthand the toll of the schedule, stress and physical load of the job. “Too often, the cumulative toll never shows up on a routine physical and isn’t apparent until it’s already a crisis,” she said.
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To support the thousands of local first responders, CAL FIRE Local 2881 and Hundred Health have launched a program that offers health assessments and personalized plans focused on improving their mental and physical well-being.
The program uses biomarkers and wearable data to spot early health changes firefighters may not detect on their own. Organizers say it could also build the first large-scale dataset that tracks how job-related exposures — including carcinogens, heat stress and sleep disruption — affect firefighters over time.
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“We’re talking about tracking biomarkers against known occupational exposures … across thousands of firefighters, over years,” Henry said.
“That data could rewrite what we know about how this career affects the human body.”
