Bunker Gear- Cleaning and Repairing

Feb 25, 2010 How to, Industry News

Keep It Clean
Aug 1, 2007 12:00 PM
By Rick Markley

You may never see the guy on cable TV don bunker gear and crawl through an involved structure to show what a dirty job firefighting is. Nonetheless, firefighting is a dirty job. And there are good reasons to keep firefighters clean beyond looking good when the local news cameras show up at a scene.

The filth that attaches itself to bunker gear is more than unsightly; it is dangerous. The National Fire Protection Association says these dangers include hydrocarbon-soiled gear absorbing more radiant heat and being more likely to conduct electricity than clean gear. Heavily soiled gear also is more likely to ignite. And dirty gear increases the risk that firefighters will become ill by inhaling, ingesting or absorbing cancer-causing toxins from materials such as petroleum or asbestos, or from communicable diseases from bodily fluids such as blood.

NFPA’s 1851 standard gives fire departments guidelines for inspecting, cleaning and repairing turnout gear. (A revised version of the standard is due out soon.) Some of what 1851 requires is that turnout gear be taken out of service at least once every six months for advanced cleaning. Whereas routine cleaning can be as simple as brushing or hosing gear off, advance cleaning involves using cleaning agents and either hand or machine washing. The standard also requires regular inspections and repairs, specifies drying techniques, and sets out record-keeping requirements.

Most fire chiefs will agree that these minimum cleaning and repair requirements are good for both department and gear. But there’s more than one path to 1851 compliance.

One unique path that’s just surfaced in the United States is a program offered by Lion Apparel called Total Care. Vicki Smith, Total Care’s marketing director, got the program rolling in 1998 with the London Fire Brigade. The program has expanded to include cities in Spain, Australia, England and Germany. All of New Zealand uses the service and about two years ago Toronto came on board. The first American city, Chicago, signed on early this year and began services this summer.

The service involves collecting turnout gear from each firefighter once every six months. The gear is taken to a 16,000-square-foot downtown Chicago facility where it is given advanced cleaning, put in a special drying room and inspected for damage. Damaged gear is repaired on site and there is a special area to deal with gear that is contaminated. Lion then delivers the clean gear back to the fire station.

Chicago signed a two-year contract with three one-year options to follow. London began with a five-year contract and has renewed each year. Smith, who spent nine years in London, says that the London Brigade “had a culture of clean and was outsourcing gear cleaning.” But it wasn’t done on a timetable before Lion; each firefighter would arrange his or her own cleaning. What’s also different in the United Kingdom is a law giving government agencies responsibility for its workers personal protective equipment.

“When I was in London, in the first year we had a fire in a tire factory,” Smith says. “We received hundreds of sets of gear that were covered with soot from rubber. We had another situation where we had a fire in a facility that held chemicals; that fire burned for five days. Anybody who responded to that situation had the possibility of being contaminated with a chemical.”

In Chicago, as in London, Lion will collect, decontaminate, inspect and repair any gear that firefighters suspect may have come in contact with toxins. In fact, the contract with Chicago gives Lion a four-hour window to retrieve the gear and distribute loaner gear from the time a firefighter notifies Lion of contaminated gear. That means Lion’s 12-member staff must split the 24-hour on-call duties, even on holidays.

“Fire departments don’t work 8 to 5, and they don’t always know their schedule,” Smith says. “They don’t know day to day or hour to hour what is going to happen. That’s why we have our own emergency hotline; fires don’t just happen during the day.”

Emergencies aside, there are still the logistics of trying to switch gear for Chicago’s 5,100 firefighters, she says. Lion collects and cleans the gear while firefighters are on furlough. To coordinate these schedules, the Chicago Fire Department turned over human-resource information that tells where firefighters are stationed and when they are scheduled for work, as well as their names, gear size and sex. Lion houses this information in a database that matches each firefighter to a unique bar code on each piece of gear. And this, Smith says, gives Chicago the record-keeping data required by 1851.

“When we collect it our drivers scan the gear with handheld scanners,” Smith says. “When they come back to the warehouse and upload into the system, we know we’ve collected Joe Smith’s gear. Everything through the warehouse is tracked by serial number.”

But this service doesn’t come cheap, and many departments would be hard-pressed to justify such an expense. There are many turnout cleaning and repair services across the country. And many advertise 24- to 48-hour turnaround, loaner gear, repair services, and bar-code tracking. Departments outside the delivery areas of these services can ship turnout gear and have the clean gear shipped back. For departments with only one set of gear for each firefighter, the added shipping time can be troublesome.

That was the dilemma facing Ohio’s Violet Township Fire Department. “The department cannot afford to have a second set of gear, which makes using an outside firm impractical,” says Lt. Dave Carter. “When gear had been sent for repair, it had sometimes taken three to four weeks.”

Violet Township’s 39 full-time firefighters are spread across three stations and cover about 43 square miles and a population of 35,000, just east of Columbus, Ohio. Between fire and EMS calls, the department responds to 3,800 calls per year. Six years ago, Carter was put in charge of bringing the department into 1851 compliance. He set up schedules and procedures for cleaning in-house using a Milner washer-extractor and a rinse solution he buys from National Safety Clean.

“If it is a small department that isn’t faced with logistical problems such as the tracking elements, I don’t know why they wouldn’t be able to accomplish it on their own if they are willing to invest in the equipment and the time that it takes,” Smith says.

Randy Radtke, UniMac’s spokesman, advises small departments to focus on flexibility. Machines with microprocessor controls will do a variety of laundry tasks and be adaptable to changes in 1851, he says.

Most washer-extractor manufacturers, such as Continental Girbau and UniMac, say their machines will perform advanced cleaning. Continental’s washers have controls to set the G-force, mechanical action, water temperature and chemical injection.

Violet Township firefighters clean their gear two to three times per year, or immediately if they get dirty on a run. For the most part, the firefighters inspect and clean their own gear. However, sometimes the oncoming shift will clean the gear of the departing shift. Carter says the firefighters pay close attention to others’ gear. It is a small department and everyone looks out for each other, he says.

But buy-in to the program wasn’t immediate. “It took about a year and a half to get everyone into that habit,” Carter says. “The big thing is that it gets the guys hands on the gear and they start recognizing tears. They are taking accountability of their gear.”

Currently, Carter and one other officer are overseeing the department’s 1851 program. However, there are two more being trained for supervision. The department does all of its repairs in house except for the liners. Liners must be sent out because Violet Township doesn’t have a seam sealer.

Back in Chicago, Smith has several sewing stations, a seam sealer and equipment to install heavy seams and hardware such as rivets. In addition, Smith says that the revised 1851 calls for “the liner systems to be opened after three years of use so that the moisture barrier is exposed and can be inspected. The moisture barrier is sewn to a thermal liner and is not easily inspected. It also says that after that third year, you have to inspect the liner annually.”

Smith says all that effort pays off because the gear will not only be safer but last longer. “If you routinely maintenance gear, you are less likely to get into a state where it is economically unfeasible to repair gear. It is like an automobile. Some people always take it in when it needs service, and they won’t be faced with the catastrophic repairs as some one who’s driven it five years without changing the oil.”

Carter agrees. He says Violet Township’s gear lasts about two years long since the department adopted the 1851 standard. “Keeping it clean and keeping up on repairs has made a big difference in the life of the gear.” -end of article

I hope you found this information of some assistance if you have any questions regarding the clean and repair process of your fire turnout ensemble please contact us toll free at 866-370-7800 or visit us online.

Tags: bunker gear, Cleaning, repairing, requirements, turnout gear