High Performance Thermal Liners

Before we get to that, let’s establish a few things:   1)  What is a thermal liner? A firefighter’s turnout gear is made from multiple layers of high performance materials to protect from a range of physical, thermal, and liquid hazards. The layer that is closest to the skin, the thermal liner, consists of a face…

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FDIC 2014

FDIC 2014 was busy as usual this year with record-breaking attendance of almost 32,000 attendees. Those attendees came from all over the world—55 countries sent fire service representatives to FDIC in Indianapolis to talk, listen, teach, learn, and explore what is time tested and what is new in the fire service. One concept relatively new…

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Risk Assessment: A Must for All Those Involved in Selecting PPE

While risk assessments aren’t anything new, they also aren’t exactly commonplace with the majority of fire departments in North America. As fire departments become more educated on the benefits of doing a risk assessment and the liability involved in not doing one, expect to hear the buzzword “risk assessment” more and more when new personal…

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Flame Resistant Base Layers

A hot topic being discussed these days is the idea of fire departments adopting flame resistant base layer garments to replace 100% cotton t-shirts or polyester t-shirts. The US Military has already gone through similar evaluations and found inherently flame resistant knits like Sigma™ as the optimum fabric for flame resistant base layers. Explored below…

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