This study aims to understand the current status of exemptions for traffic accidents during the return of emergency vehicles and to provide suggestions for improvement. A survey was conducted on 3,500 firefighters to investigate the perception of traffic accidents during the return of emergency vehicles, and responses from 505 participants were analyzed. Based On the demographic characteristics and perception of the participants, frequency analysis and variance analysis were used as research methods to analyze basic statistics and the current situation. The results showed that firefighters have concerns and anxieties about traffic accidents during the return of emergency vehicles, and the need for applying exemptions and enacting explicit legal provisions was statistically confirmed. Based on these results, we suggest a policy for exemptions to improve the preparation for re-deployment and to alleviate the concerns and anxieties of firefighters.

This study investigated changes in psychological stress levels of 60 firefighters after participation in an eight-week Equine-Assisted Learning (EAL) program consisting of 16 sessions. The Korean versions of the Posttraumatic Diagnosis Scale (PDS-K), the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (K-CESD), and the Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (K-DERS) were used for measurements. Participants were divided into two groups according to level of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS): the PTSS risk group and the PTSS non-risk group. Results showed that PDS-K, K-CESD, and K-DERS scores were significantly reduced after the program in the PTSS risk group. Significant reduction was also found in all sub-scales of PDS-K: re-experiencing, avoidance/emotional numbing, and hyperarousal. Moreover, in the PTSS risk group, there were greater improvements with significant group x time interactions. These findings suggest that EAL is effective in relieving PTSD and PTSD-related symptoms of firefighters with subsyndromal or more severe levels of PTSD.

Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world, and firefighters have the highest suicide rate among the professional population. As a result of the study, post-traumatic stress disorder education is essential in all occupations. Post-traumatic stress disorder is the most common disease and the biggest obstacle for firefighters in Korea. Firefighters who have suffered physical and mental damage in many types of disaster sites due to their extreme occupations are rapidly increasing the suicide rate in recent years. In order to maximize the effect of job training, education on post-traumatic stress disorder from new employees to leadership training is urgently needed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of firefighting seatbelt use and factors affecting the wearing seatbelt of firefighters. The seatbelt use of citizens was also studied for comparative study. Two T-tests were conducted to confirm the characteristics of firefighters’ safety belts wearing firefighters. As a result, there was a statistically significant difference, on seatbelt use in general vehicles, between firefighters and citizens. And a significant difference between fire vehicles and general vehicles, on firefighters’ seatbelt use, and the average was lower in fire vehicles. Factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were conducted to 10 influential factors affecting seatbelt use of firefighters’. And factor analysis and reliability analysis revealed two major factors (Physical factors, Learning factors). In multiple regression analysis, it was confirmed the two independent factors had a positive effect on the dependent variable, the rate of seatbelt use of firefighters’.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of fire officers’ experience of traumatic events and subsequent forest healing on their occupational burnout. The results are as follows: First, the experience of traumatic events, social and psychological healing, and relieving stress by strolling had a significant effect on burnout. The more fire officers are exposed to traumatic events, the more they lose self-control in social and psychological aspects, and the lower the level of stress relieved through strolling, the higher the level of burnout. Thi sresult suggests that the more fire office rsare called out for fire fighting, the more they see their colleagues with severein juries, and the higher the level of mental and physical an xiety, the more they areex hausted. Moreover, for es thealing help store duce the irmental and physi calfatig uecaused by traumatic events, thu spreven ting them from suffering from burn out. Second, the experience of traumatic events, social and psychological healing, and relieving stress by strolling had a significant impact on occupational stress. The more fire officers are exposed to traumatic events, the more they lose self-control in social and psychological aspects, and the lower the level of stress relieved through strolling, the higher the level of occupational stress. This result indicates that to relieve job stress caused by fire fighting, increased forest healing activities, including various programs such as psychotherapy, developing interpersonal relationships and self-control, and creating a positive mind-set, can reducejobstress and help fire officers recover from it. Lastly, job stress had a mediation effect on the effects of the experience of traumatic events and forest healing on burnout. This implies that burnout can be prevented when fire officers gain high emotional stability through social and psychological healing and stress-relief strolling over a traumatic experience, and stronger support from the organization and family can keep them from being emotionally drained, thus contributing to the prevention of burnout.

Firefighters wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for protection from environmental hazards. However, due to the layers of protective functions, the PPE inevitably adds excessive weight, bulkiness, and thermal stress to firefighters. This study investigated the adverse impact of wearing PPE as an occupational stressor on the firefighter’s cognitive functioning. Twenty-three firefighters who had been involved in firefighting at least for 1 year were recruited. The overall changing trend in the firefighter’s cognitive functioning (short-term memory, long-term memory, and inductive reasoning) was measured by the scores of three standardized cognitive tests at the baseline and the follow-up, after participating in a moderate-intensity physical activity, wearing a full ensemble of the PPE. The study findings evinced the negative impact of the PPE on the firefighter’s cognitive functioning, especially in short-term memory and inductive reasoning. No significant influence was found on the firefighter’s long-term memory. The results were consistent when the participant’s age and BMI were controlled. The outcomes of the present study will not only fill the gap in the literature, but also provide critical justification to stakeholders, including governments, policymakers, academic communities, and industry, for such efforts to improve human factors of the firefighter’s PPE by realizing the negative consequences of the added layers and protective functions on their occupational safety. Study limitations and future directions were also discussed.

강풍 현장에서는 소방공무원들의 안전에 심각한 위협을 받을 수 있으며 현장 활동에도 큰 영향을 끼치게 된다. 현재 국내에 는 강풍 시 현장 대응 매뉴얼 기준이 마련되어 있지 않아 소방공무원의 강풍에 대한 이해를 돕기 위한 충분한 교육이 이루어지지 않으며, 강풍 시 현장 활동에 대한 합리적인 판단이 불가능한 실정이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 강풍 현장에서 소방공무원의 희생을 줄이기 위하여 실제 소방대원을 대상으로 풍동실험을 수행하였으며, 수행된 풍동실험 유형으로는 소방관의 복장, 지면의 미끄러운 정도, 물건 운반 등이 있다. 또한 강풍 조건에서 활동 유형별 현장 대원의 행동과 풍속에 따른 행동 제약 요인을 분석하고, 활동 유형별 제한 풍속을 도출하여 이에 따른 정량적인 평가를 수행하였다.

Firefighting hoods protect the head, face, and neck areas of officials while they perform firefighting services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the head size of Korean firefighting officials in order to establish the dimensions necessary to construct firefighting hoods. A total of 98 male firefighting officials participated in this study and 11 body dimensions, necessary for the construction of firefighting hoods, were measured. The data collected from the firefighting officials were compared to the general adult male data from the Size Korea national anthropometric study. The heights, weights, head circumferences, head heights, and bitragion arcs of the firefighters were significantly larger than those of general adult males, which shows that firefighting officials generally have larger body and head sizes than general adult males. Based on the results of Pearson's correlation coefficients, head circumference and head height were judged to be the important measurements for the construction of the firefighting hoods. Thus, these two measurements were chosen as the basic dimensions of the cross tabulation analysis. As a result, head circumferences of 57.00~60.99cm and head heights of 23.00~25.99 cm were found to be important measurement ranges among the firefighters. This study is expected to be used as the basis for the creation of firefighting hoods that help to ensure the safe rescue activities for firefighting officials.

Aging of the fire organizations, typical disaster response agencies also will be in serious problems with aging society. It is expected that the ratio of more than fifties will reach 31~40% after 10~15 years in Seoul fire organization. This Aging of firefighters can bring about a serious problem in disaster and safety management, since firefighters require robust fitness and healthy bodies in disaster situations. In this study, after the analysis of aging status and trend of firefighters in Seoul, I have an empirical analysis about the impact this aging has on organization effectiveness and QA. As a result, the increase of the elderly reduced organization effectiveness and QA. In addition, in the group consisting of less than 50, it is expected to increase the organization's effectiveness and QA activities through field activity to improve the professional skills with age, but could not be confirmed. In the group consisting of more than fifties, it was found that aging had a significant negative impact on organizational effectiveness and QA activities as factors, including physical deterioration by aging.

This study aimed to identify the recognition of fire risks on their field operations among firefighters and contribute to setting up safety measures accordingly. A self-administered questionnaire were used to evaluate their recognition of job risks. About 93.4% of respondents answered they have exposed to job risks and 73.4% answered that they had high safety awareness. Our study showed that the lower service years and ranks the fire officers had, the lower relevance in statistics their awareness of the risk of the field operations and safety concerns had. The vulnerable group is those aged 20 to 39, with under 10 years of service, at a lower rank of senior fire sergeant. The study suggests coming up with the measures to motivate the officers to perform safe operations by improving their safety awareness.