Local Colin Thornton saw the fire from his workplace. “I’ve not seen anything like this before, this is massive. It is a really, really big fire,” he said. “There is thick black smoke rising, billowing out over a wide area and I can turn around and see it everywhere.”

Residents near Sherwood Hall were advised to close their doors and windows as the ash and air could be carrying asbestos fibers from the burning building. Asbestos fibers are known to cause severe respiratory conditions including asbestosis, lung cancers and rare cancer mesothelioma, which affects about twenty thousand people worldwide each year.

Mesothelioma is almost solely caused by asbestos fibers, which can begin a mutative process in the lungs if inhaled. This process takes decades to develop, often between twenty and fifty years. When symptoms do demonstrate they mimic those of bronchitis and pneumonia, making mesothelioma difficult to diagnose. Once proper diagnosis is made, life expectancy averages eighteen months.

Many mesothelioma patients have no idea they were ever exposed to asbestos and therefore have no reason to consider screening for asbestos related illnesses. With today’s knowledge, however, authorities in disaster cases such as fire know to quickly warn residents, locals and emergency workers of the hazards.

There are mesothelioma treatments available including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Often a combination of these treatments is used. There is no known cure for mesothelioma.

Although asbestos is relatively safe in a containing material such as floor or ceiling tiles, damage and wear over time can release toxic fibers into the air. Fires and other disasters are a much faster way for dangerous fibers to be released. Recognizing the potential hazards, authorities closed the streets surrounding Sherwood Hall until safety can be attained.

Although the UK, US and other countries have heavily regulated asbestos use, it is present in countless buildings and structures around the world. Greatly relied upon through the past century in multiple industries and manufacturing arenas, it could take decades to rid the world of its presence. However, far from removing worldwide asbestos components, many developing nations continue to use the dangerous substance with little to no safety precautions.

No injuries have been reported from the Sherwood Hall school fire and the cause is yet to be discovered.

Firefighters around the world have a life expectancy that is 10 years shorter than average, probably due to exposure to smoke, toxins and asbestos, Israel Fire Commissioner Shimon Romach said yesterday. The new regulations were drafted by Yitzhak Shalev, whom the Firefighting Authority appointed national asbestos officer two years ago.

There have been more than 100 asbestos fires this year, more than a third of them at illegal garbage dumps, said Shalev. Even more may have gone unreported. Furthermore, there are millions of square meters of asbestos in buildings and garbage dumps around the country, he said. Asbestos is a carcinogen, and exposure, even to only a few fibers, can cause several kinds of cancer and a fatal lung disease. The exposure is sometimes only discovered decades later.

Fires make asbestos slabs crumble and release their dust into the air, from where it enters the respiratory system. Special gear can protect against this. Until recently, there had been no regulations on handling asbestos fires, and firefighters were frequently unaware that a danger even existed.

Shalev said he was appointed to tackle the issue after warning Romach of the problem two years ago. He drafted a method to deal with asbestos fires, including using protective gear and coordinating with various bodies, such as the Environmental Protection Ministry, to remove the asbestos once the fire is out.

Five years ago, a Labor and Welfare Ministry study on firefighters found higher-than-average rates of breathing and hearing problems. “We didn’t check life expectancy nor exposure to specific substances,” said Dr. Yehudit Shaham, who conducted the study. Dr. Avi Wiener, director of the Institute of Preventive Occupational Medicine at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, also cited studies showing that firefighters’ life expectancy is shorter than average. “One of the assumptions is that this is due to exposure to toxins…”