This month, North County firefighters are taking part in a national campaign in which firefighters are honoring women who are fighting breast cancer. Firefighter/paramedic Matt Lindsey, who is heading up the local campaign, said that the trend in fire service today is to educate the public in injury and disease prevention.

To help show their support of breast cancer awareness, the firefighters have been wearing pink ribbon pins on their uniforms during October and will be wearing pink shirts instead of their blue shirts from Oct. 20 to 22. The firefighters hope that local residents will see them wearing pink and be encouraged to learn more about the disease.

According to statistics found on www.breastcancer.org, approximately one in eight women in the US will develop invasive breast cancer at some point in her life. In 2010, more than 200,000 women, along with almost 2,000 men, are believed to have been diagnosed with breast cancer in this country. There were more than 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the US last year.

A decrease in another statistic supports the firefighters’ efforts: "About 39,840 women in the U.S. were expected to die in 2010 from breast cancer, though death rates have been decreasing since 1990. These decreases are thought to be the result of treatment advances, earlier detection through screening, and increased awareness."

For Lindsey, the campaign is personal.

"It hit home for me because I lost my aunt to breast cancer eight years ago," he said, adding that multiple members of North County Fire have family members or friends affected by the disease.