Field evaluation of the performance of SCBA used by firefighters.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Spandoni D ; Wakeley H ; Waterman T
• Description:
  The protection factor afforded firefighters by demand type self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), was investigated. A portable apparatus was designed to sample carbon-monoxide (630080) (CO) concentrations both within and without the facepiece. The apparatus was employed by members of the Chicago Fire Department Snorkel Squad Number 1 and used during actual fires. No useful data was obtained from these field experiments. From 17 use incidents only three sets of gas sample bags were returned to the laboratory with sufficient gas volume to perform an analysis for CO, and these analyses gave random results. The authors attribute the lack of valid results to several difficulties in collecting usable data: reluctance of the volunteers to use the SCBA while actually at a fire; failure of volunteers to turn the sampling system on or off while wearing the masks; recharging of air tanks without researchers' knowledge; deflation of sampling bags through leakage in the field; and apparent CO gas permeability of the plastic sample collection bags. Several recommendations are made to correct these problems before further studies are carried out. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Content Notes:
  in NTRL, no PDF
• Subjects:
  Firefighters Fires Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Respiratory Protective Devices Safety
• Keywords:
  NIOSH-Contract; Contract-210-75-0074; Personal-protective-equipment; Fire-fighting-equipment; Fire-fighting; Respirators
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Illinois ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-22
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00121613
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB83112516
• Citation:
  NIOSH 1976 Aug; :1-22
• CAS Registry Number:
  Carbon monoxide (CAS RN 630-08-0)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1976
• NORA Priority Area:
  Research Tools and Approaches: Control Technology and Personal Protective Equipment
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Engineering Mechanics Division, IIT Research Institute, Chicago, Illinois, NIOSH, Cincinnati, Ohio, 22 pages, 5 references
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:7dc847c09aedf140bc731323e8446b4703641ae07d6ad9e7b7238120dab30b8f7dcaa9b938d34d035f87873a0fe7fec262d5d13dcaf290925445e82b6de3b57d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/241401/cdc_241401_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 168.02 KB ]