Gaps in PPE cleaning and decontamination being investigated

By Jeff and Grace Stull

Our prior column, “Advances in PPE cleaning verification,” provided an overview for the direction being taken in the consolidation of NFPA 1851 and NFPA 1852 as part of a new NFPA 1850 standard. This consolidation is intended to bring together PPE that is worn in the same exposure environment that could ultimately lead to consistency in how the fire service approaches selection, care and maintenance of this equipment.

It is well-established that there are differences for cleaning, disinfecting and decontaminating SCBA, helmets and footwear, which necessitate other approaches than those applied to garment items, including hoods, and sometimes gloves. The idea of trying to focus solely on cleaning turnout clothing where most of the attention has been is not an acceptable solution. This is because the other clothing items can also easily lead to continuing and prolonged secondary contamination exposure to firefighters. We also know that anything that must be manually cleaned is less likely to be cleaned or to be cleaned consistently as compared to clothing items that can be put into a machine.

Over the past several years, the NFPA’s Fire Protection Research Foundation has been working on projects supported by the Department of Homeland Security through the Assistance to Firefighter Grants Research Program. These projects have attempted to evolve cleaning and decontamination best practices for all items in the full ensemble worn in structural firefighting and other emergency responses where firefighters expect to be contaminated by hazardous or infectious substances. To date, this project has yielded results in the form of supporting data to aid in the adoption of proposed methodology and criteria for the NFPA 1851 standard (2020 edition) and the new NFPA 1850 standard now going through the final stages of its approval process (expected summer 2025).

Here, we will explain where the current areas of research are leading and the hopeful expectations for their adoption.

Bottom of FormMost of the attention has been placed on turnout clothing, specifically on the outer shell. This makes sense because it would be expected that this part of the ensemble would be the dirtiest, and it also presents the largest surface that can become contaminated. However, our studies and those from other organizations show that the contamination often easily penetrates through the shell onto the moisture barrier and can further result in contamination to the underlying inner thermal barrier, if not directly to the other layers through openings at interfaces where fire gases and soot can penetrate.

Early work has shown that not all outer shells, moisture barriers and thermal barriers clean up the same way. To this end, the Foundation has demonstrated that the cleaning verification procedures used for outer shells can also be applied to these other layers of the garments as well as protective hoods, both regular knit and particulate blocking, and helmet textiles (suspension bands and chin straps).

In this investigation, materials were doped with fireground chemicals and subjected to cleaning to determine the percentages of chemicals that could be removed. This testing showed differences in material ease of cleaning based on the type of material and its construction.

Proposals were made as part of the revision process for the new NFPA 1970 process where the committee agreed to report only results for the above turnout clothing materials as a way of providing information that can allow fire service organizations to consider ease of cleaning when selecting materials. Thus, as a result of the current requirements, more information on material cleaning differences will become available.

This same approach is being more broadly considered for SCBA textiles in a similar manner where the NFPA 1981 portion of NFPA 1970 requires that SCBA be designed for more easily removed “soft goods.”

Because gloves, footwear, helmets and SCBA pose greater challenges in cleaning, Foundation efforts have been investigating different procedures by which various cleaning processes, both manual and machine-aided, can be assessed for their effectiveness. This investigation has not been without significant challenges. Treating textiles with chemicals is much easier than applying them to leather and rubber-type materials. Many of these materials include special finishes, waxes or treatments that can interfere with the analytical processes for identifying and quantifying specific chemical contaminants. Therefore, much of the investigative efforts to date have been to find ways where known levels of contamination can be placed on the clothing items, subjecting those clothing items to cleaning, and then measuring what remains for the purpose of providing evidence that cleaning has removed those contaminants.

Machine-based cleaning is becoming of greater interest to the fire service, as it makes it easier for consistent and typically more effective processes to be applied in place of manual processes, often relegated to the individual firefighters. Some of the techniques, such as ultrasonic cleaning, have been around for some time. More recently, newer technology cleaning equipment offers the potential for removing contaminants when the equipment itself does not rely on tumbling or mechanical agitation found in ordinary wet wash processes. A key part for promoting these new approaches is how cleaning can be verified.

Most gear manufacturers will indicate their permission for washing their products in a new machine technology, but that is only from the standpoint that the equipment itself is not damaged as a result of the procedures. The gear manufacturers make no claim relative to how effective equipment is in removing contamination. Therefore, some of the more recent Foundation research has been to find ways by which a variety of different methods can be equally assessed for their efficiencies in removing fireground contaminants. Ultimately, when verification procedures are established that can be validated, their incorporation into the new NFPA 1850/1851 standard could have the impact of encouraging fire service transition to newer cleaning technologies for the entirety of their ensemble.

The intent of the current cleaning verification procedures in NFPA 1851 (that will be brought forward in improved forms for the consolidated NFPA 1850 standard) has been that verified technology finds its way into mainstream fire service cleaning practices. The thinking is that Independent Service Providers (ISPs), a rich resource of information for the industry, are able to create the awareness for fire departments to allow them to set up their capabilities that can approach the effectiveness of commercial cleaning facilities. This has partly worked as originally conceived, as many ISPs offer training and advice to their customers and other fire departments.

The dissemination of information about best practices can further be improved if specific machines, detergents or cleaning agents, or entire processes can be verified through a rigorous process set within the NFPA standards. This approach would allow suppliers of these items to make specific claims that have been independently validated and are reviewed on a continuing basis, just in the same way that certification is applied to protective clothing and equipment. This idea is taking hold, but to work, it requires fully defining the requirements so that the fire service can have confidence that products with verified claims, per the NFPA standard, will work as intended.

One last area that can help the fire service understand the effectiveness of its cleaning processes is in the ability to provide assessment tools. The Foundation has been working to identify and validate a simple way where a fire department can evaluate how well their in-station cleaning equipment is working. To this end, the idea of using a specially stained turnout clothing fabric has been advanced – specifically that when the fabric swatch is subjected to laundering, it will show removal of the stain visually.

The specific work of the Foundation is to demonstrate that this visual evidence correlates with the more sophisticated techniques that it has developed and that are now implemented within NFPA 1851 for ISPs and manufacturers. If proven effective, departments would need only to obtain multiple samples of the standardized stained material pieces, insert them in their wash loads on occasion, and use a visual comparison chart to assess if the machine is properly cleaning the gear. The kit would also include guidelines to assist the department for changing their cleaning approach if the results are not favorable.

While the work of the current Fire Protection Research Foundation is coming to an end in 2025, a wealth of information from different research findings and investigations will yield the basis for improved fire service cleaning and decontamination practices for all types of PPE used in structural firefighting. As the principal aim has been, this information – when used to inform requirements for guidance provided as part of NFPA standards – becomes an effective means for transitioning research to practice in a way that can affect organization and firefighter behaviors for limiting their exposure to unnecessary secondary contamination from unclean or improperly cleaned clothing and equipment.

Note: The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsor.