PHOENIX — Firefighters routinely respond to calls where they’re interacting with people on the worst day of their lives. The Phoenix Fire Department recently created the Member Services Division dedicated to helping firefighters and their loved ones through some of the emotional challenges that can come with that.
“Our motto here in Phoenix Fire is ‘our family helping your family.’ … Our motto in Member Services is ‘our family helping our family,’” Capt. David Kirk, the program’s manager, said Wednesday.
Member Services offers a 24/7 phone line as well as a physical hub at Station 30 for those seeking support, though Kirk said the team will go where it’s needed.
“That’s kind of the unique piece to our shop. We’re mobile, so if we need to go to your house, or to a station, or a restaurant — wherever the member or their family member wants to meet up, we have access to that, and we can make that happen,” he said.
Kirk said they also introduced Car 20, a response unit that automatically dispatches to calls that tend to be more traumatic for first responders, such as infant drownings and suicides.
United Phoenix Firefighters Association Local 493 has historically provided services and resources, but Kirk said the department wanted to build its own unit apart from the union’s.
PFD first piloted the program in June 2024 and officially launched Member Services in July of this year. Since the start of the pilot, Kirk said the team has had more than 11,000 interactions with first responders and their families, despite the department having just 1,800 firefighters.
New Phoenix Fire division takes holistic approach
Kirk said the department is working to create a holistic approach to physical and mental health. For example, all 650 of the department’s sleeping spaces are being supplied with grounding bed mats through a donation from Earthing.com.
The mats are made of a conductive material designed to dissipate static electricity from your body into the earth through a cord connected to the ground. The company says this offers numerous health benefits.
“Members are falling asleep faster, they’re dreaming again after not being able to dream in over a decade, the aches and pains are going away. … It’s kind of changed the culture a lot,” Kirk said.
Phoenix Fire Capt. Paramedic Courtney Ebright was skeptical of the mats at first.
“Over time, I did find I was falling asleep faster when we came back from calls, which is something I normally struggle with,” Ebright said. “I would actually wake up in the mornings after a shift feeling like I slept all night, when in fact I know that wasn’t the case.”
Ebright said she’s experiencing less brain fog and more mental capacity for the things she needs to accomplish during the day since she started using the grounding mats.
In 2019, the International Agency for Research on Cancer listed chronic shift work as a probable carcinogen. Studies have shown sleep cycles that disrupt circadian rhythm are linked to higher rates of breast cancer and prostate cancer.
We want to hear from you.
Have a story idea or tip? Pass it along to the KTAR News team here.
