SWP - Exposure Reporting

Recording an exposure for every member it reached, the same day, in the department’s exposure record. An exposure report is required for every member who was in the hot or warm zone at a working fire, every hazmat incident, every live-fire training evolution, every wildland or interface deployment day, and any event where a member had contact with smoke or products of combustion, diesel exhaust at concentration, carbon monoxide or hydrogen cyanide (any meter reading, or symptoms), asbestos, silica or other dust, a chemical by any route, a biological agent (blood, body fluid, needlestick, airborne illness), PFAS foam, or a physical agent at a harmful level (noise, heat, radiation). An exposure report is also required when a member thinks they were exposed and is not sure: the report costs five minutes and the record lasts a career (NFPA 1585, 2025; IARC, 2023). Full program: Occupational Cancer Prevention, Exposure Tracking and Screening Program.

An exposure report is not an injury report. If the member has symptoms, needed first aid or medical attention, or lost time, an injury report is filed as well, and the statutory and compensation clocks apply (J08 Incident Reporting and Investigation).

• The exposure itself, recorded here so that medical surveillance and a later claim have the facts.
• Under-reporting: “it was only a small fire”; “I always get exposed”; “I don’t want to make a fuss”; filing only when someone is hurt.
• Memory: a report written three days later is wrong about who, how long and what.
• Privacy: symptom and medical fields seen by people who should not see them.
• Lost records: a system that cannot export a member’s history in year twenty-five.

The exposure record system (app, RMS module or department form); the incident number; the gas monitor readings if taken; the rehab log if rehab was held; Form - Exposure Report on paper as the fallback on every apparatus.

The company officer (or the senior member at a volunteer station) starts the report; each exposed member confirms their own section; the HSO reviews and codes. Officers are trained in what counts as an exposure and the sign-off; members in how to confirm and add to their section; the HSO in the system and the coding.

A. At the scene (company officer)

1. Decision point: did anyone reach the hot or warm zone, or contact anything in section 1? If yes, an exposure report is required for each of them. If unsure, yes.
2. Note on the accountability record or in the cab: who was in which zone, doing what, for how long; SCBA on and off times; whether SCBA stayed on through overhaul; the meter reading before SCBA came off; hood exchanges, gross decon, wipes; anything unusual (asbestos, solar or battery, chemicals, PFAS foam, blood).
3. Tell the crew: “Exposure report on this one, confirm your section before you go home.”

B. Before the end of the shift (company officer; volunteers before leaving the hall or within 24 hours by phone or app)

4. Open the report from the incident number so the CAD times and incident type pre-fill.
5. Complete the officer section for each exposed member: zone, activity, duration, SCBA times and overhaul, meter reading, occupancy and fuel package, suspected agents, route, PPE worn and condition, hood exchanged, gross decon done, wipes used, shower within 60 minutes, PPE bagged for advanced cleaning.
6. Decision point: did anyone have symptoms, need first aid or medical attention, or get transported? If yes: also file an injury report; tell the platoon or district chief; the HSO is told the same day; the statutory and compensation clocks start (J08 Incident Reporting and Investigation). For a bloodborne or airborne exposure, the post-exposure protocol in SWP - Infection Control and Post-Exposure runs first (within two hours for bloodborne).
7. Sign the officer section.

C. Member confirmation (each exposed member, same day where possible, within seven days at most)

8. Open your section; check it; add anything the officer missed (where you actually were, how long, what you touched, symptoms); add later symptoms within 30 days.
9. Acknowledge with your ID and the date. Your acknowledgement is not agreement that nothing happened; it is confirmation the record is yours.

D. Review and filing (HSO, within five working days)

10. Cross-check the incident system: is there a report for every member who was in the hot or warm zone? Chase missing ones through the officer.
11. Check the mandatory fields; code the agents and activity; flag the symptom and medical fields for restricted access.
12. Decision point: does the exposure need medical follow-up, a compensation exposure report, or a regulator notice? Chemical, biological or significant smoke exposures with symptoms or medical attention get a compensation exposure or injury report so the date is on record; serious injuries and accidental fires or explosions have a regulator notice clock (J08 Incident Reporting and Investigation).
13. File in the exposure record; link to the incident number, the rehab log and any injury report; add the exposure to the member’s cumulative summary for the physician.
14. Tell the officer the report is closed, and tell the member who raised a concern about the report what was decided, within 10 working days.

E. Wildland and interface deployments

15. One report per member per deployment day, from the deployment exposure log: hours on the line, smoke intensity, respiratory protection used, symptoms. The deployment lead files; the HSO reviews on return.

• System down: paper Form - Exposure Report from the apparatus; the HSO enters it within five working days.
• Member unreachable (volunteer, off shift): the officer files the officer section; the member confirms within seven days; the HSO chases.
• Exposure discovered later (for example, asbestos confirmed by the investigator a week after the fire): the HSO opens reports for every member on the incident from the accountability record, and each member confirms; the discovery date and the incident date are both recorded.
• Member refuses to be on a report: the officer files it anyway with a note; the HSO talks to the member; nobody is removed from a record of an exposure that happened.
• A cluster of missed reports at one station: corrective action; a two-hour session at the station; not a disciplinary matter.

• Form - Exposure Report (field set in Occupational Cancer Prevention, Exposure Tracking and Screening Program section 17.1).
• Retained for the duration of service plus 30 years, the United States benchmark (OSHA, n.d.-a, 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1020), or longer where the applicable law requires (J09 Records Retention); exportable per member within 10 working days of request.
• Symptom and medical fields restricted to the HSO and the physician; aggregate reporting at cell sizes of 10 or more.
• Completion rate reported quarterly by station; missed reports to the Corrective Action Register.
• Links: injury report, rehab log, compensation claim number, regulator notice time where applicable.

• Recruits: what counts as an exposure, the system, the member’s section.
• All members: annual refresher with the decon drill.
• Officers: scene documentation habits, the officer section, the two decision points, within six months of appointment and every three years.
• HSO: system administration, coding, the clocks.
• Sign-off in the training record. The Health, Wellness and Rehab Program Improvement Team reviews this SWP annually, when the system changes, when a national field set is published, and after any learning team finds the report is not being done as written.

• Program: Occupational Cancer Prevention, Exposure Tracking and Screening Program
• Policy: Policy - Incident, Injury, Exposure and Near-Miss Reporting and Investigation
• Forms: Form - Exposure Report; Form - Rehabilitation Log
• SWPs: SWP - On-Scene Preliminary Exposure Reduction; SWP - Post-Call Station Decontamination; SWP - Infection Control and Post-Exposure; SWP - Wildland Deployment, LCES and Heat
• Programs: Decontamination and Contamination Control Program; Protective Clothing and Equipment Program; Medical, Fitness and Wellness Program
• Learning: Incident Investigation and Learning Program

This chapter relies on the following legal requirements, which differ by province and territory. Check your jurisdiction’s section on each topic page before adopting it.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA]. (n.d.-a). Access to employee exposure and medical records (29 C.F.R. § 1910.1020). U.S. Department of Labor. https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.1020