Decontamination of metals from firefighter turnout gear

Stolpman, Drew; Williams, Denise N.; Solouki, Touradj; Harris, Debra

doi:10.1080/15459624.2021.2015071

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…PPE prevents toxic substances generated during combustion from being inhaled through the respiratory system or absorbed through the skin [17,19]. Therefore, it is important for firefighters to wear PPE when performing firefighting activities at disaster sites, including all fires, and to take emergency decontamination actions to remove contaminants from the site after firefighting activities for disease prevention, hygiene and safety management [17,[20][21][22]. The decontamination effect of FPSs worn at fire scenes has been proven in several studies [21,23,24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, it is important for firefighters to wear PPE when performing firefighting activities at disaster sites, including all fires, and to take emergency decontamination actions to remove contaminants from the site after firefighting activities for disease prevention, hygiene and safety management [17,[20][21][22]. The decontamination effect of FPSs worn at fire scenes has been proven in several studies [21,23,24]. Some studies have analyzed the relationship between firefighters' PPE cleaning and storage behavior and health beliefs [25,26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Associations between Recognition and Behaviors Regarding the Use, Washing and Management of Firefighting Protection Suits and Public Health Awareness of Occupational Exposure Risks among Firefighters

Kim,

Ham

2024

Fire

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The firefighting protective suits (FPSs) of firefighters at fire scenes affect their health and safety. However, the association between firefighters’ health awareness of occupational exposure risks and the FPS use, washing and management remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the association between firefighters’ health awareness of occupational exposure risks and their recognition, behaviors regarding the use, washing and management of FPSs. This study design is a cross-sectional study and used a web-based survey of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s electronic survey system. The survey was conducted on metropolitan firefighters performing shift work in charge of fire and rescue work for 21 days from 1 to 22 April 2019, with 1097 (40.3%) respondents. Characteristics of FPS use, washing and management and the association between thoughts and behaviors thereof and health awareness of occupational exposure risks were evaluated. Data of 1097 firefighters were analyzed using the SAS 9.4 statistical package, chi-square test and logistic regression analysis. Firefighters’ fire scene awareness rate of possible carcinogens was 94.4%. There was an association between public health thinking of occupational exposure risks and the correct use of an FPS for one’s own safety (AOR 1.97. 95% CI 1.02–3.80). However, no association was shown between correct FPS use (AOR 1.49, 95% CI 0.48–4.59), washing (AOR 2.50, 95% CI 0.93–6.68) and management (AOR 1.38, 95% CI 0.75–2.50) behaviors. This study analyzed the relationship between the use, washing and management of personal protective equipment called firefighting clothing and firefighters perceived occupational exposure risks. This study found an association between the health awareness of occupational exposure risks and recognition of the correct use of FPSs at fire scenes but not between using, washing and managing behaviors of FPSs. This study is the first to analyze the relationship between firefighting clothing and occupational health awareness level. The results confirm that future interventions are required to help firefighters practice desirable behaviors toward FPSs and provided evidenced data for preventing occupational diseases among firefighters. Therefore, this study can be used to develop a firefighter occupational health curriculum and establish health and safety plans from mid- to long-term perspectives for firefighters’ safety against occupational exposure risks.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations between Recognition and Behaviors Regarding the Use, Washing and Management of Firefighting Protection Suits and Public Health Awareness of Occupational Exposure Risks among Firefighters

Kim,

Ham

2024

Fire

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The chemistry of the cleaning products plays an important role in the cleaning performance. Stolpman et al (2021) compared the cleaning efficacy of two cleaning solutions, Decon7 and a standard detergent to remove heavy metals such as arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), and antimony (Sb) while performing laundering. They used the manufacturers' recommended amount for both surfactants and found that Decon7 performed better to reduce metal content compared to the standard laundry detergent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the performance of surfactant and charcoal-based cleaning products to effectively remove PAHs from firefighter gear

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Firefighters regularly respond to fire scenes where a mixture of chemicals including volatile, semi-volatile, and nonvolatile compounds are present in smoke and soot. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are common contaminants at fire scenes that may be deposited on the gear and the individual firefighter. Laundering is a common approach for the decontamination of contaminated gear. Surfactants are widely used by firefighters during laundering to remove PAHs as they are generally non-toxic and biodegradable. The removal of PAHs depends on the surfactant types, chemistries, and concentrations. This study evaluated the effect of surfactant concentrations to remove persistent contaminants like PAHs from turnout gear. The cleaning performance of different types of surfactants was also evaluated. Outer shell fabrics were contaminated with a standard mixture of 16 PAH compounds, and two commercial detergents were used at different concentrations. Additionally, the cleaning efficacy of eight commercially available regular and charcoal-based cleaning products was also determined against PAHs at a single surfactant concentration. For the decontamination method, a bench-scale washing procedure simulating the National Fire Protection Assocation 1851 laundering process was used. The removal efficacy of high molecular weight (HMW) PAHs were found to be lower compared to the low molecular weight PAHs for any type or any concentration of detergent. Our research also showed that the recommended surfactant concentrations provided by detergent manufacturers can be ineffective at removing the HMW PAHs from heavily contaminated fabric. With 1 mL of detergent in a 100-mL bath, which is multiple times higher than recommended amount, only 40% of HMW PAHs were removed. The cleaning efficacy can be increased to above 90% by using higher concentrations of detergents. This research shows that firefighters may need to use a higher concentration of detergent than the recommended amount to effectively remove PAHs from the gear. All the regular and charcoal-based detergents were able to remove PAHs effectively from contaminated fabrics when a higher concentration of detergent was used.

show abstract

Hazardous air pollutant emissions estimates from wildfires in the wildland urban interface

et al. 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fires that occur in the wildland urban interface (WUI) often burn structures, vehicles, and their contents in addition to biomass in the natural landscape. Because these fires burn near population centers, their emissions may have a sizeable impact on public health, necessitating a better understanding of criteria and hazardous air pollutants emitted from these fires and how they differ from wildland fires. Previous studies on the toxicity of emissions from the combustion of building materials and vehicles have shown that urban fires may emit numerous toxic species such as hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, isocyanates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxins and furans, and a range of toxic organic compounds (e.g. benzene toluene, xylenes, styrene, and formaldehyde) and metals (e.g. lead, chromium, cadmium, and arsenic). We surveyed the literature to create a compendium of emission factors for species emitted from the combustion of building and vehicle materials and compared them with those from wildland fires. Emission factors for some toxic species like PAH and some organic compounds were several orders of magnitude greater than those from wildfires. We used this emission factor compendium to calculate a bounding estimate of the emissions from several notable WUI fires in the western United States to show that urban fuels may contribute a sizeable portion of the toxic emissions into the atmosphere. However, large gaps remain in our understanding of the fuel composition, fuel consumption, and combustion conditions in WUI fires that constrain our ability to estimate the impact of WUI fires.

show abstract

Decontamination of metals from firefighter turnout gear

Cited by 3 publications

References 33 publications

Associations between Recognition and Behaviors Regarding the Use, Washing and Management of Firefighting Protection Suits and Public Health Awareness of Occupational Exposure Risks among Firefighters

Associations between Recognition and Behaviors Regarding the Use, Washing and Management of Firefighting Protection Suits and Public Health Awareness of Occupational Exposure Risks among Firefighters

Evaluating the performance of surfactant and charcoal-based cleaning products to effectively remove PAHs from firefighter gear

Hazardous air pollutant emissions estimates from wildfires in the wildland urban interface

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About