What color of turnouts do you use and why. I can't imagine using black because if I go down in a fire, It will be harder to find in black.Yes , I get you have the pass device but sometimes hearing where the sound is coming from in the comotion is hard.I prefer the normal tan color.I clean mine after every fire.Be safe and God Bless all of you.
Wow this was a touchy subject. No one here is dictating what color of gear you wear. Just suggesting what color is safer. Every little bit helps when creating the safest environment we put our selves in to. Being seen is part of the job so a color that stands out above all others in dark smokey situations is best, bottom line. I believe that our sister FFs are insulted by some your statements and should not be included in our professional discussion. Nuf said.
Permalink Reply by Dave on September 24, 2008 at 4:39pm
Bill, the fact is, no matter what collor you wear into a building that is filled with smoke....your not going to be seen. People post how it is a safety hazard to have black gear, people post alot on this site about what others should be doing, but infact they have no clue what they are talking about. Black gear poses no safety risk, no study has indicated that I have read anyway, that if a firefighter was wearing blaze orange gear with 20000000 square inches of reflective stripping he would ha been found .00003 seconds faster and his life would have been saved.
Wear the gear and the collor that your dept feels is best for them.
Thanks for the insight. I have an opinion and so you do. God bless us both for helping the public. My last comment's point was the poor choice of statements to get a point/opinion across. TCSS
I have my dads old gear its a long black cotton duck jacket (carhart jacket material) and a pair of hip boots. I still wear it at parades but cant even think about making entry in it.
Ouch, the subject is getting hotter than the fire.I am going to go put my tan gear on.Some people have taken this site to personal.We post these forums for opinions.Remember, We live in America and have a right to free speech and opinion.Right or wrong is not ours to decide.We just simply wanted OPINIONS on your choice and why.Yes,I do fight fire . Yes , I am a Proud Volunteer who values opinions as we all can learn.God Bless all Fire Fighters paid or not,no matter what you wear to be safe!We need to not take cheap shots or cuss at someone for their opinion.Thanks and Be Safe .
So do i but someone else made it sound as if some people did not have the right color they did not fight fires and the just talked about it . I have seen different colors of turnouts which included me wearing yellow , tan and black . Yellow showed a lot of dirt but showed up in the fires well and did not feel as hot . Tan is a good color still shows dirt but not as bad as yellow showed up in fires pretty good and it did not seem as hot . Black did not show dirt that much but it did not show up in fires very well and it seemed to get hotter than the others .
No one said that they have no experience or that they don't know what they are doing. Those are mostly "traditional" departments. The point that several of the posters made is that there has been no reason other than tradition put forth as the background for why some department chose to wear black.
Dark gear has three distinct disadvantages - it's a low-visibility color, which can be a problem when working at night, in fog, or other low-viz conditions, and it absorbs radient heat at higher rates than does lighter-colored gear. It also hides problems like dark-colored contaminents that are readily visible on light-colored fabrics.
As far as the point about dark gear colors making a downed firefighter more difficult to find, thermal imagers are the best way to find them regardless of the gear color.
Those problems are based in science, not value judgements or bashing of departments that chose to wear dark colors.
Permalink Reply by Dave on September 25, 2008 at 10:31am
True Ben, TIC are the best way to find down firefighters. True thats that no matter what color gear you wear the TIC will find you. Now for the TIC, who has actually been trained on the proper use of the TIC??
We have a TIC on five of our eight front-line companies. No company is farther away than 2nd-due from a TIC, and we will remedy that during this budget year.
We have an in-house TIC class that all recruits are required to take and pass within six months of hire, as well as recurrent refreshers for everyone else.