Expense of New Gear, Fate of Old are Burning Issues for Firefighters
When Whitey Swartz joined Pleasantville’s fire department in 1959, firefighters wore protective gear into fires that today would remind him of a barn jacket he could buy in a clothes or sporting-goods store.....Continue Reading
It was heavy and hot, it had a quilted liner and it had one particularly inconvenient feature for clothes that were supposed to protect people in fires:
“You’d hear somebody say, ‘Hey, your coat’s on fire,’” says Swartz, who’s now the Atlantic County fire marshal. He retired as an active firefighter in 1989 — he was deputy chief in Pleasantville then — and he remembers wearing that same basic 1950s-level of protective clothing for most of his career
By comparison, the turnout gear firefighters wear today is a high-tech marvel, with a fireproof, waterproof outer shell, layers of protection against steam and heat and blood-borne diseases, plus a lining designed to keep firefighters as cool as possible by letting their own sweat escape.
Of course, all those features come with a high price tag to match.
Margate fire Chief John Kelley says it will cost his department more than $22,000 to replace just a third of its turnout gear, at almost $1,100 for each coat and $750 per pair for protective pants.
But for all its quality and expense, turnout gear doesn’t last forever. Margate needs to buy new equipment to replace gear that’s 10 years old — which means it no longer meets the standards of the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit authority in fire-safety issues.
Bruce Teele, a senior fire-safety specialist for the organization, explains that the protective linings and layers break down with time and use — especially in the environments where turnout gear is needed. And while wear and tear on the outside of the clothes is obvious, breakdowns to the inner liners are often invisible, he says.
So that explains why, under the NFPA’s standards, Margate or another fire department isn’t allowed to even give away its 10-year-old coats and pants to other firefighters in the United States. And it explains Teele’s lack of enthusiasm for a collection of used turnout gear that Margate and many other local departments contributed to last year.
The United Methodist Church at Absecon, whose mission team has been visiting Guatemala for several years to help out a local mission there, asked fire departments around Atlantic and Cape May counties for turnout gear that was still in good shape but too old by NFPA standards.
They came up with more than 100 sets that people from the Absecon church shipped down to the mission they support in Guatemala — which had enough left over that it could equip volunteer fire companies in several nearby villages as well, says Barry Hackett, a member of the Absecon mission team.
Kelley, the Margate chief, appreciates the need to keep firefighters safe, and supports following the NFPA’s standards for turning over turnout gear after 10 years. But he also was happy to contribute Margate’s used turnout gear to firefighters who have far less and worse equipment than an American department would ever dream of having.
“Would you want to go into a fire in flip-flops and a T-shirt?” Kelley asks.
Teele, at the NFPA, has heard that reasoning in connection with turnout-recycling programs such as the Absecon church’s. But because the problems that make turnout gear ineffective after 10 years aren’t visible, he says, people trying to help firefighters in poor countries may actually be harming them instead.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea because it gives them a false sense of security,” Teele says. “It sounds very benevolent —you’re sending them protective clothing because it’s better than shorts ... and sandals. But shorts and sandals will tell them a lot quicker that they’re in danger, and they’ll back away.”
Walter Brangenberg, a 29-year veteran of the Atlantic City Fire Department and a member of the Absecon church’s mission team, says he can vouch for the turnout gear his group got together for Guatemala. He examined each piece personally, made sure the pants and jackets were matched for safety purposes, and rejected pieces if they even had a label cut out — because that could compromise the layers of linings and barriers, he explains.
“I really had to cull through it, because we spent almost $4,000 shipping it down there,” says Brangenberg, an ACFD captain. “So we didn’t want to send them just rags.”
And he’s confident they didn’t, and his group’s attempt to do good won’t hurt any firefighters who got local gear — which still met NFPA standards, he says, except for the age.
At the NFPA, Teele says fire-safety standards are always evolving. The current 10-year retirement age for turnout gear is down from 15 years in the previous standards, for instance.
And a possible future evolution could lead to more questions and debates on what to do with outdated — but perfectly safe-looking — turnout gear.
“Information we’re getting ... from departments across the country seems to indicate that 10 years is too long to replace it,” Teele said. “Many departments are implementing their own policy that seven years is when they want to retire clothing.”
The NFPA is due to come out with its next standards for turnout gear in 2012, he added.
E-mail Martin DeAngelis: MDeangelis@pressofac.com
This story was taken from the news source stated above. It's content and comments are not the opinion of The Elwood Vol. Fire Company or it's members.
