The National Volunteer Fire Council has received a $636,000 Fire Prevention and Safety Grant to support its Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program. The grant will support a health fair, health-and-wellness advocate workshops, and the National Firefighter Health Week, as well as other new initiatives, NVFC Executive Director Heather Schafer said.

“Heart attacks are the leading cause of death among firefighters,” she said. “So the program aims to reduce the trend of cardiac arrest in the fire service, raise the level of awareness within the fire service and provide the tools needed to keep our firefighters safe in their daily jobs.”

The NVFC launched the Heart-Healthy Firefighter Program in 2003 and it is the nation’s only heart-attack prevention program for fire and emergency services, Schafer said. The program has several components, including a Web site, health screenings, a cookbook, a resource guide, health-and-wellness guides and traveling trade show booths that hold health screenings for firefighters.

The grant specifically will support an interactive, traveling Health Fair that will be brought to eight state fire association trade shows — two of which already have been completed in the grant cycle, Schafer said. The fair includes cholesterol screenings for first responders, the distribution of health and wellness resources, and a Wii Fit competition.

“We all know how competitive firefighters are, and it’s a great interactive tool at a booth where firefighters can see where they are at on the fitness scale,” Schafer said.

In addition, the NVFC will conduct a two-day Health and Wellness Advocate Workshop at each of these conferences to provide attendees with the tools to implement a health and wellness program within their departments, Schafer said.

“It is a great opportunity for a department’s health and safety educators, or maybe the chief of the department, to come in and learn about how to implement a health and wellness program in their department,” she said. “Those folks take that information and go back to their departments to implement programs and spread the information.”

The grant also will support a series of five webinars on topics related to health and safety, Schafer said.

“It is a terrific way, especially for volunteer firefighters, to train through online or distance learning,” she said. “The webinars will provide that opportunity for our busy volunteers to find time to take that training, so we will develop those on varying topics.”

Another new component will be the creation of a Behavioral Health Workshop, which will be given at five state association conferences. This workshop will focus on critical behavioral health issues, Schafer said.

“It will focus on alcohol abuse, time management and personal safety behaviors,” she said.