Firefighter Involvement in Animal Disease Response in Poland: A Nationwide Descriptive Analysis

This study describes interventions carried out by fire protection units in support of selected animal disease control operations in Poland in 2022-2024.

The study used operational data from the Decision Support System of the State Fire Service (DSS-SFS), provided by the Operational Planning Office. Records coded under the administrative event flag "epizootics" between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2024, were screened and then filtered on the basis of event descriptions to retain only interventions related to the animal disease events included in this analysis. Quantitative variables were described using the mean and standard deviation, and nonparametric tests were applied at a significance level of p < 0.05. The dataset was fully anonymized.

In 2022-2024, firefighters were dispatched 452 times to events classified in the DSS-SFS under the administrative category "epizootics" and retained in the final analytical dataset. Three event types were identified: avian influenza, African swine fever, and American foulbrood. Intervention duration differed significantly between voivodeships, with the longest mean ranks observed in Podkarpackie and Zachodniopomorskie and the shortest in Świętokrzyskie and Mazowieckie. The largest pairwise difference was found between Świętokrzyskie and Zachodniopomorskie.

The analyzed records indicate that firefighter involvement in these events was primarily operational and supportive in nature. The most relevant findings were regional differences in intervention duration and greater vehicle deployment in avian influenza events, likely reflecting terrain conditions and the spatial scale of search activities. These data may support operational planning, but they do not allow conclusions about infectious or psychological health outcomes among firefighters.