The number one killer of firefighters isn't fire. It's their own hearts.

Kepra Jack was an ER nurse and pre-hospital coordinator, married to a firefighter, when a 44-year-old friend didn't wake up for shift change. That question, why are healthy people having cardiac events, became 15 years of first responder medicine: a primary care practice built for police, fire, EMS, dispatch, military, and their families, annual medicals for departments of every size, and national work with the IAFF, IAFC, and NFPA.

Kepra owns HeartFit For Duty and is a founding member and vice president of Science to the Station, the nonprofit connecting fire service researchers with the firefighters their work is meant to protect. In this conversation: the 2022 decision that classified firefighting itself as a carcinogen, why 83 percent of fire service research has happened in the last two decades, the bro science problem at the kitchen table, what families never get taught about supporting their firefighter, NerdStock (the fire service science conference that ends with a circus), and the three things anyone can start today: real food, a primary care doctor, and actual sleep.

Her closing challenge: establish with a mental health provider before you need one. And it is never too late to change your risk factors.

Resources: science2station.org, and reach Kepra at kepra@heartfitforduty.org

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