Abstract
AbstractFire-fighters’ personal protective clothing is the only source of protection for fire-fighters during fire-fighting. The protective clothing should provide adequate protection as well as should be comfortable to wear. The protection and comfort requirements are always the contradicting fact in several protective clothing including fire-fighters’. Appropriate material selection, clothing design and final evaluation of the results play a critical role in predicting the clothing performance and comfort. Several researches have been done on the performance and comfort improvement of fire-fighter’s protective clothing. However, detailed review related to these parameters is not being reported in recent years. In this perspective review, we report the recent trends in the performance and comfort properties of the fire-fighters protective clothing. The clothing design and different materials used to achieve a balance between performance and comfort is illustrated. Various test standards related to the performance and comfort is also being discussed. In addition, the future scopes and challenges while designing tomorrows advanced protective clothing are cited. This would provide a guideline in terms of comfort and performance while developing and designing the fire-fighter protective clothing for different climatic conditions.
Highlights
Fire-fighters encounter a range of hazards during structural as well as wild-land fire-fighting
Personal protective equipment (PPE) and personal protective clothing (PPC) are the materials which create a barrier between the hazardous environment and the fire-fighter for protection (Scott 2005)
The possible health and environmental hazards related to nanotechnology should be explored before their application
Summary
Fire-fighters encounter a range of hazards during structural as well as wild-land fire-fighting. Song et al (Song et al 2010) evaluated the thermal protective performance of fabric systems under low level thermal hazards in the range of 6.3–8.3 kW/m2 by laboratory simulation study following ASTM F 1939 (radiant heat resistance test) and a modified method to capture the contribution of energy stored in the test specimens to skin burn injury. Wild-land fire-fighters in several places wear clothing that is usually made up of only the outer layer to protect against radiant and flame impingement, as well as to allow the wearer to maintain cool temperatures, as they must work long hours in dry, hot weather conditions.
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