NEW YORK — Many firefighters who raced to save victims of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack now are facing their own health problems because of the contaminated air at the disaster site.

        Some have asthma. Others have troubles ranging from a persistent cough to diminished lung capacity that can interfere with their physically demanding jobs. A few hundred are on medical leave or working light duty because of respiratory illness.

        It's too soon to tell how many firefighters will be permanently disabled and forced to retire because of the respiratory problems, said Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon. But so far about 30 firefighters have started the retirement process because of respiratory problems after working at the trade center disaster, which either caused their lung ailments or worsened prior ones, Mr. Gribbon said.

        Apart from those with current symptoms, medical experts say some firefighters and other ground-zero work ers may be at risk of developing cancer decades from now.

        One attorney said he has filed legal documents on behalf of more than 700 firefighters with respiratory symptoms to preserve their right to sue the city later on.

        Many firefighters who participated in the rescue effort are easily winded, suffer from chronic cough or have developed symptoms of asthma, said Tom Manley, health and safety officer for the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

        Some on medical leave may not be able to return to their old jobs, he said.

        “You can't be fighting fires with asthma,” said Mr. Manley, a firefighter for 19 years.

        Mr. Manley, who was at the trade center when the towers collapsed, said he continues to be nagged by the so-called World Trade Center cough.

        “In the mornings it's heavy,” he said. “It feels like a powder on the back of your throat.”

        Apart from the cough, “you can't take a deep breath sometimes,” he said. He said he has been helped by an inhaler and medication.

        Mr. Gribbon said many firefighters with persistent cough are on the job and improving with treatment.

        Michael Barasch, the attorney who has filed the legal notices on behalf of firefighters, said one fireman who used to run marathons now finds he can't even carry his 3-year-old daughter up the stairs because of lung disease.

        The notices he has filed are intended to preserve the firefighters' right to sue the city later on, under the claim that the city failed to follow federal regulations and provide protective respirators soon after the attack, the attorney said. Besides the 700 firefighters, he said he has also filed on behalf of about 300 police officers, fire marshals and emergency medical technicians.

        Researchers who are studying the health effects of Sept. 11 say the failure of many rescue workers to wear respirators is a major factor in their health.

        Mr. Manley said that with so many off-duty firefighters and volunteers pouring in to help, there simply weren't enough to go around early on. Some used surgical masks, he said, but those can't keep all the potentially hazardous materi als out of the lungs.

        Mr. Gribbon said that even when respirators were available, some firefighters chose not to wear them. The equipment is uncomfortable, he said, and makes communication difficult.

        Respirator use by workers at ground zero improved after the first few days but “could certainly be better,” said Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, chair of the department of community and preventive medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

        Noting that the trade center disaster is “bigger than anything we've seen before,” Dr. Landrigan said nobody can predict completely the long-term consequences.

        Among the substances that escaped from the 1.2 million tons of debris at ground zero are asbestos, benzene, dioxin, and polychlorinated biphenyls, known as PCBs. These are linked to cancer, although experts said in many cases the exposures were low enough that the risk appears to be small.

        Recently, four Port Authority police officers who worked at the site were reassigned after they showed elevated levels of mercury in their blood. It wasn't clear whether the mercury came from ground zero, and the officers were in good health, officials said.

        Mr. Gribbon said no elevated mercury has been detected in firefighters, who are getting special medical evaluations because of their search and rescue roles at the scene.

        Dr. Landrigan said his top concern is asbestos. Some 20 years or more after exposure, it can cause meso thelioma, a rare cancer affecting the sac lining of the chest or abdomen. Most people with the disease have worked in jobs where they breathed asbestos. Asbestos exposure can also cause lung cancer.

        It's hard to say how big the mesothelioma threat is, Dr. Landrigan said, because nobody knows how many workers were exposed to various levels of asbestos.

        And the exposure isn't over yet. Every time a worker picks up a beam that contains asbestos, “that stuff is kicked into the air” and could be inhaled by workers who aren't wearing proper protection, he said.

        Still, Dr. Stephen Levin, medical director of Mount Sinai's Irving J. Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, said he believes the risk of asbestos-related disease in ground zero workers is relatively low. While he doesn't want to trivialize their exposures, he said, they are lower and briefer than the typical lifetime exposures seen in construction workers.

        As for dioxins and benzene, Dr. Landrigan said they probably pose much less risk than asbestos, and Dr. Levin said he suspected the risk from those chemicals and PCBs is small.

        A key concern experts cite is dust — a mix of such things as pulverized concrete and fibrous glass, and mineral dust, mixed with irritating gases.

        Dr. Levin said doctors at his medical center have found more than a dozen people who, in the wake of the disaster, experienced a first episode of asthma. The cause isn't clear, but it could be dust, gases or a combination.

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