VIDEO: It's a problem Captain Lance Tryggestad with the La Crosse Fire Department says he never thought twice about, when he became a firefighter 22 years ago. "You think about heart attacks, you think about the stress it puts on your heart, physical fitness, trauma." But none of those things are the leading cause of death among firefighters. "They're twice as likely to get some cancers than the general population." They battle the fires and then many end up battling cancer. Sixty one percent of line-of-duty firefighters died from cancer between January of 2002 to March of 2017, according to the Firefighter Cancer Support Network.