In late 2019, the first cleaning verification requirements were put into NFPA 1851: Standard on Selection, Care, and Maintenance of Protective Ensembles for Structural Firefighting and Proximity Firefighting. These requirements – principally developed by the Fire Protection Research Foundation as part of the “How Clean Is Clean?” project – were implemented to ensure a minimum basis for how well independent service providers (ISPs) clean structural gear contaminated in fires with products of combustion.
Conceptually, the idea was simply to take representative materials, put known amounts of chemicals on those materials, and then run them through the cleaning process at the ISP to provide results for how much of the chemicals were removed. With the increased attention on hazards associated with unclean or improperly cleaned turnout clothing, interest in having a “yardstick” for measuring the efficiency of removing contamination was perceived as the best way of improving firefighter PPE cleaning effectiveness.
As of September 2024, there are over 80 organizations that have been independently certified by either Intertek Testing Services (ITS) or Underwriters Laboratories (newly identified as UL Solutions) across the United States and Canada, with one organization verified in the United Kingdom.
The rapid acceptance of verification as a goal for professional cleaning organizations for fire gear, plus fire service demand for using these organizations, shows that the program is working to bring attention on eliminating much of the secondary exposure to contamination that individual firefighters face on the job.
Here we explore possible new directions, as cleaning verification gets updated in an upcoming new edition of NFPA 1851 in response to common questions we receive.
How does cleaning verification affect me?
When the cleaning verification requirements were developed by the NFPA technical committee, they were positioned to affect ISPs rather than fire departments because of the rigor and costs associated with how cleaning effectiveness can be quantified. The committee’s reasoning for pursuing this direction was that qualified cleaning procedures being used at ISPs would transfer to the individual fire departments that use the ISPs or through training on the care and maintenance of clothing – services often provided by same ISPs. Still, there have been a few departments that have directly undertaken cleaning verification and have succeeded in demonstrating that their cleaning capabilities meet the requirements of the standard.
While a focus on verifying that cleaning is indeed effective to a certain level, the expected benefit is that when the department cleans the gear on its own using verified cleaning processes from ISPs or other organizations, then there should be some expected minimum consistency for the amount of contaminants that are removed. Likewise, using ISPs for cleaning either routinely or under special conditions helps to better ensure that turnout clothing exposed to products of combustion and other contaminants is properly decontaminated to the established acceptable levels of cleaning efficiency within the NFPA 1851 standard.
Will the yardstick move?
The level of acceptable contamination removal is currently 50%, which does not seem to be all that significant but in fact represents the average state of technology for removing complex contaminants that are encountered on the fireground. Countless chemicals from combustion products create a highly varied mixture of contaminants. While some of these contaminants will easily evaporate or rinse out of gear, some are highly persistent. The minimum 50% cleaning efficiency that was determined by NFPA 1851 at the time the requirements were originally set was believed to be a reasonable basis for benchmarking contaminant removal effectiveness using some relatively harsh procedures as part of the testing. In fact, many ISPs that first undertook the independent verification at either ITS or UL have had to refine their procedures to get out the contaminants to meet the NFPA 1851 levels.
Now, as NFPA 1851 is approaching a revision that is likely to be concluded in the next year, questions have arisen as to why minimum cleaning effectiveness should not rise. This question has a complex answer, because while dozens of cleaning facilities have currently met the existing verification requirements at 50%, there are some limitations for how far the more conventional cleaning processes can achieve increased effectiveness without having to change other parts of the cleaning process, such as adding presoaking or other pretreatments or using higher temperatures in the wash process. A number of these enhancements are being investigated and are showing promise. A possible alternative to increasing minimum cleaning efficiencies is to require more detailed disclosures on the part of ISPs or other organizations claiming compliance to the cleaning verification requirements in NFPA 1851.
Ultimately, how this question is answered will depend on the confidence and repeatability of the test methods that are used in cleaning verification to show that improvements are possible. Notwithstanding that outcome, there are still clear advantages for cleaning processes that remove the majority of contaminants, particularly those that are the most likely to come out during washing and that are most like the chemicals that create follow-on exposure hazards.
Is there a plan to broaden verification?
The existing cleaning verification procedures focus entirely on the outer shell of firefighter protective garments. Certainly, all parts of the garment become contaminated, and this contamination can vary in other material layers or on other protective clothing items to a large degree. For this reason, consideration is being given to provide the very same cleaning verification procedures that have been adapted to looking at moisture barrier and thermal barrier layers in turnout clothing, as well as hoods and other PPE materials.
The provision of these optional verification procedures can then be applied by ISPs and other organizations to validate how different materials or other clothing items can be effectively cleaned. The ability to support the implementation of these procedures in NFPA 1851 has been a substantial part of the ongoing Fire Protection Research Foundation “How Clean is Clean?” project.
In addition, techniques have been evolving for addressing other types of contaminants. Cleaning verification already addresses removal of harmful bacteria, such as MRSA and other biological contaminants from gear, using similarly based approaches, as applied for chemicals. Additional procedures have been put in place to examine the removal of a broader range of chemicals of concern that firefighters routinely encounter on the fireground. For example, categories of cleaning verification have been proposed to address the commonly large group of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as well as per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). Efforts are also underway to look at the ability to remove the unique hazardous substances that are commonly associated with lithium-ion battery fires.
What can my department expect in the future?
Fire departments do not always have the resources to invest in robust cleaning procedures. When they do, they may often be on their own to determine the best machines, detergents and cleaning process steps to effectively clean their turnout clothing and hoods in house. To this end, programs are being considered to certify products such as cleaning equipment and detergents as being approved to NFPA requirements. While some of these types of claims are already being made, they are, in fact, not based on any specific set of criteria within the NFPA 1851 standard. Nevertheless, groundwork is being laid so that such certifications can be established through a legitimate third-party process, likely to occur as part of an updated set of NFPA 1851 requirements. In addition, work is underway to similarly establish full process verification so that when a department acquires a specific machine and related cleaning agents, independent data and reviews of the suppliers will be available to ensure that these turnkey systems will work as intended.
Another area that is well overdue is more automated and effective cleaning of other equipment items that historically have been subject to manual cleaning. New technology has come forward that allows different kinds of machines to more effectively remove contaminants from products that cannot go through ordinary washing processes. The techniques associated with these new technologies will also likely have associated verification processes so that fire departments looking to use these products for items like gloves, footwear, helmets and SCBA will have reasonable information to judge their utility and effectiveness.
Key takeaway
The fire service has become much savvier about keeping their gear clean. When verification processes are put in place along with detailed guidance for how those processes can be properly applied, firefighters gain confidence that their gear will be better cleaned – one less source of ongoing contamination exposure. The idea of verification is not to make things more complex or difficult but rather simpler by providing qualified choices that provide fire departments with options to achieve effective cleaning of their PPE.
Note: The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsor.
