A Story of Impact: Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation Prompts Fire Hose Performance Testing and Revised Standards

Details

• Personal Author:
  Bowyer, Matt E. ; Loflin, Murrey E. ; Merinar, Timothy R. ; Miles, Stephen T. ; Moore, Paul H. ; Orr B ; Webb, Sydney ; Wertman, Stacy C.
• Description:
  Personal protective equipment, such as fire fighter turnout gear, is vital in firefighting operations. Turnout gear offers thermal protection to keep fire fighters safe. Hoselines are also important protective equipment for fire crews entering burning buildings. However, hoselines have been damaged during recent firefighting operations. Fires involving modern materials burn much faster than those of several decades ago, resulting in rapidly deteriorating fire conditions that can damage hoselines. While thermal protection for firefighter turnout gear and breathing apparatus have improved, thermal protection for fire hoses has remained unchanged. Although unchanged, there are existing testing requirements that fire hoses must meet. In 2014, a fire lieutenant and fire fighter died fighting a fire in a residential Brownstone. Their deaths were the result of a combination of factors, including: open doors that created an unrestricted flow path for the fire, strong winds that intensified the fire, and damage to the hoseline that prevented water flow. The lieutenant and firefighter entered the building through the front door with a hose without water and moved downstairs to the basement, searching for the source of the fire and a potential victim. High winds impacted the intensity of the fire, allowing it to spread quickly. The lieutenant gave the order to charge the hoseline with water, but the extreme heat had burned it through preventing water flow. A back-up hoseline was also burned through. The lieutenant and fire fighter became trapped. The NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Prevention Program (FFFIPP), which conducts independent investigations of fire fighter line-of-duty deaths, observed the damaged hoseline during their investigation1 and were aware of it occurring in other incidents. To address this issue, the FFFIPP investigators contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in May 2014 for assistance. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Emergency Responders Firefighters Fires Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Emergency Responders Fire Fighters Fire Fighting Fire Fighting Equipment Surveillance
• Series:
  NIOSH Numbered Publications
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHPUB2017205
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Handout/Flyer
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; West Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSR - Division of Safety Research
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20050478
• Citation:
  Morgantown, WV: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 2017-205, 2017 Sep; :1-2
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2017
• NORA Priority Area:
  Public Safety
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9389ed0c71a6fd784a54f50c317ff7e095b1600bbe38655d0a19198ee1592e45cf2b7967e10d723cb59101ddeb254be13998a14275026be11660f2ddda2931cc
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/210095/cdc_210095_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 478.68 KB ]