Cleaning Personal Protective Equipment of Military Firefighters

Multiple recent epidemiology studies have documented elevated risks of several cancers in firefighters. It has been uncovered that there is a dose response relationship between fire-runs and leukemia mortality and fire-hours and lung cancer mortality and incidence. Chemical exposures encountered during firefighting are thought to contribute to the elevated risk of these cancers. These unacceptably high rates of diseases show that while firefighters are being protected from thermal hazards; invisible chemical hazards remain a significant challenge. Of particular interest for the fire service community, are questions concerning the use and handling of contaminated turnout gear, and the extent to which the contaminants absorbed on the protective clothing pose a risk to the firefighter. Specifically, semi-volatile compounds like the highly carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have recently garnered considerable attention. These low volatility contaminants can accumulate in the materials of the turnout gear and pose an increasing risk of being transferred to a firefighter’s skin during doffing or donning, on-scene decontamination, storage, or cleaning. These contaminants present a known hazard by skin contact. It is the specific goal of this proposed effort to develop a product with documented performance for the enhanced removal of these semi-volatile, carcinogenic PAHs from turnout gear.