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Turnout Gear

Structural fire fighters’ protective clothing is designed to protect its wearer from the thermal environments experienced during fire fighting.  This includes protection from thermal radiation, hot gas convection, and heat conduction from hot surfaces.  Fire fighters may receive serious burn injuries from each of these modes of heat transfer or a combination of them even though they are wearing protective clothing.  In addition, fire fighters’ protective clothing is often wet when it becomes heated by the fire fighting environment.  Hot vapors and steam are generated inside protective clothing systems that also produce serious burn injuries.  Fire fighters’ protective clothing has definite physical limits associated with its ability to protect the wearer.  These safe use limits are poorly understood and are not addressed in current fire service protective clothing standards.

The Fire Fighting Technology Group is studying these physical safe use limits for thermal performance of fire fighters’ protective clothing, and it is developing new test apparatus and predictive tools that will provide insight into the causes of burn injuries.  This effort is helping to  develop a better understanding and define the safe use limits of fire service  protective clothing.  As a result, this research effort will assist in reducing the number of serious fire fighter injuries.

The photos above show a firefighter demonstrating the compression points of a protective clothing ensemble
and a radiant panel device developed by NIST to test the turnout gear layers.

The photo above shows a full-scale oven used to test turnout gear.

Reports

Measurement Techniques for Low Heat Flux Exposures to Fire Fighters Protective Clothing
Vettori, R. L.; Twilley, W. H.; Stroup, D. W.; NIST SP 971; NISTIR 6750; 89 p. August 2001

Estimates of Thermal Properties for Fire Fighters' Protective Clothing Materials
Lawson, J. R.; Walton, W. D.; Bryner, N. P.; Amon, F. K.; NISTIR 7282; 71 p. June 2005

Estimates of Thermal Conductivity for Unconditioned and Conditioned Materials Used in Fire Fighters' Protective Clothing
Vettori, R. L.; NISTIR 7279; 33 p. November 2005

Thermal Measurements for Fire Fighters' Protective Clothing
Lawson, J. R.; Vettori, R. L.; Thermal Measurements: The Foundation of Fire Standards. American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). Proceedings. ASTM STP 1427. December 3, 2001, American Society for Testing and Materials, 2002

Development of a Dynamic Compression Test Apparatus for Measuring Thermal Performance of Fire Fighter's Protective Clothing
 Lawson, J. R.; Twilley, W. H.; Malley, K. S.; NISTIR 6502; 70 p. April 2000

Development of an Apparatus for Measuring the Thermal Performance of Fire Fighters' Protective Clothing
Lawson, J. R.; Twilley, W. H.; NISTIR 6400; 55 p. October 1999

Estimates of Thermal Conductivity for Materials Used in Fire Fighter's Protective Clothing
Lawson, J. R.; Pinder, T. A.; NISTIR 6512; 22 p. May 2000

Fire Fighter's Protective Clothing and Thermal Environments of Structural Fire Fighting
Lawson, J. R. NISTIR 5804; 26 p. August 1996

Firefighter Thermal Exposure Workshop: Protective Clothing, Tactics, and Fire Service PPE Training Procedures
Lawson, J. R.; Jason, N. H. NIST SP 911; February 1997

Fire Fighting Environments and the Limits of Fire Fighters' Protective Clothing and Equipment
Lawson, J. R.; Fire Fighters: Safety in Rescue Operations. Papers. International Sessions. International Meeting. Ministry of the Interior Firefighters, Public Rescue and Civil Defense Department. Proceedings. April 18-20, 2002, Rome, 1-1 pp, 2002

Heat Transfer Model for Fire Fighter's Protective Clothing
Mell, W. E.; Lawson, J. R.; NISTIR 6299; FA 192; 33 p. January 1999

Thermal Performance and Limitations of Bunker Gear
Lawson, J. R.; Fire Engineering, Vol. 151, No. 8, 37,40,42,44,46,50-52,55-56, August 1998

Software

Turnout Gear Selector (ToGS ™) Software Tool -- Turnout Gear Selector (ToGS) helps the manufacturers, purchasers and users of fire turnout gear evaluate and select the turnout coat and pants ensemble that best meets their needs.