Cancer cluster found among firefighters from Australian training centre

Photo / Thinkstock

Brain, skin and testicular cancers are being found at higher rates in firefighters who trained at a Victorian fire training centre, a new report shows.

Sixteen firefighters who were among 606 who trained or worked at the Fiskville training centre between 1971 and 1999 have died from cancer.

Premier Daniel Andrews revealed details of a cancer cluster at the site, saying victims and their families are entitled to answers and better treatment than they received in the past.

"The evidence is becoming clearer and clearer each day that people have become sick because of this place, people have died because of this place," he told reporters on Wednesday.

"There is a statistical over-representation, there is a cancer cluster."

Mr Andrews said the risk to those at the site now was low because of remediation works.

He has asked that the Monash University report findings be included in a parliamentary inquiry into Fiskville, the terms of which are expected to be finalised in February. The United Firefighters Union says the study is vindication for the union and former CFA fire chief Brian Potter who fought to expose the dangers of the site in the years before his own death from cancer in 2014.

"When Brian Potter died the former government still clung to the fiction that Fiskville was safe and they refused to recognise his cancers as work-related or to support him and his family," union spokesman Mick Tisbury said.

He said those who sent firefighters to the site had no choice now but to resign.

Cancer cluster figures

* 606 firefighters traced between 1971 and 1999

* 95 declared high risk, 256 medium risk

* 69 have cancer, including 25 high risk and 38 medium risk

* 16 have died, including 6 high risk and 9 medium risk

* Higher risks of brain, testicular, melanoma and nervous system cancers

-AAP