@article{ref1,
title="Physical employment standard for Canadian wildland fire fighters; identifying and characterizing critical initial attack response tasks",
journal="Ergonomics",
year="2018",
author="Gumieniak, Robert J. and Shaw, Jim and Gledhill, Norman and Jamnik, Veronica K.",
volume="61",
number="10",
pages="1299-1310",
abstract="Physical employment standards evaluate whether a worker possesses the physical abilities to safely and efficiently perform all critical on-the-job tasks. Initial Attack (IA) wildland fire fighters (WFF) must perform such critical tasks in all terrains. Following a physical demands analysis, IA WFF (n=946 out of a possible 965) from all fire jurisdictions ranked the most demanding tasks and identified mountains, muskeg and rolling hills as the most challenging terrains. Experimental trials found the oxygen cost (mean ± SD VO2 mL∙kg-1∙min-1) while performing the hose pack back carry to be 40±7 in steep mountains, 34±5 in muskeg and 34±2 in rolling hills (n=168). Back-carrying and hand-carrying a 28.5 kg pump, back-carrying a 25 kg hose pack and advancing charged hose were the most demanding tasks. Performing the same emergency IA WFF tasks was significantly more demanding in mountains (p≤0.05), and these higher demands must be taken into account when developing a physical employment standard for Canadian wildland fire fighters (WFX-FIT). Practitioner Summary: Physical employment standards evaluate whether an applicant or incumbent possesses the physical and physiological abilities to safely and efficiently perform the critical on-the-job tasks. This paper details the process used to undertake a physical demands analysis and characterize tasks for the development of a fitness standard for IA WFF.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0014-0139",
doi="10.1080/00140139.2018.1464211",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140139.2018.1464211"
}