I have found (at least in my experiences out here in rural land) that most of the fire depts. out here wear their structural gear to do vehicle extrication, vertical rescue, (almost anything with rescue in it other than search and rescue). I know for most of the depts. out here it is a money thing, but are there any departments that utilize "extrication" gear for their members?
Fire gear for just about everything....We dont have special gear for extrications and tech rescue.
We do dress down for certain situations for example when there is a tech rescue we will go with our bunker coat and helmet with regular station pants and boots. Wearing the coat provides protection for you arms and torso from rope burns and building edges, it also provides pockests to place additional tools you may need once you reach your patient. It also give you a spot for the radio.
One of the big things we do is wear full ppe for brush fires. We do this because or regular station uniform gives zero thermal protection. Our station pant is made out of ployester and cotton both of wich burn and melt when they encounter fire. I look at it like this I do not like my work pants enough to have them permanetly attached to my skin. Once the active fire is put out we dress down but during active firefighting phases we have our ppe on.
If you wear polyester pants under your gear, do you realize that enough heated air can get between your gear and you to melt the pants fabric into your skin. It has happened so much that there's a term for it.
It's called Shrink Wrap Syndrome.
I'd rather wear some fire-retardant cotton wildland or extrication pants and jacket than full structural PPE in the woods.
Yes, Our dept purchases extracation gear for Non certified members. The rest of us have bunker gear...
Non certified members are not allowed in the IDLH zone so they have the lighter gear.
We wear Structural gear, of course I can see the benefits of extrication gear but the pros as far as I can see don't justify the cost. We replace our gear on a regular basis to begin with.
Common sense prevails here as well as in a structure fire. Or even in the bar for that matter, Know when to say I've had enough and step back and take a break. You can't do it all no matter what you are wearing. Heat stress is still an issue to to the fact of layering it's just not as many layers as structural gear. The simple statement that you must be smarter that the equipment you use is the answer. Ask for assistance and have a rehab set up for extended extrications. Use your resources wisely, but first you need to know your limits.
Michael...
you have to remember, small dept and volunteer depts dont have the funding available like the larger city depts and the larger volunteer depts do... i know there are grants out there to get new bunker gear... but sometimes getting those grants is not as easy as it seems... so the smaller depts have to make do with what they have....
but i myself agree with you about using bunker gear for MVC and extrication... its better protection for you and your fellow fire fighters...
I thought that extrication gear wasn't NFPA approved? and because of that the one time that i asked my chief bout it he said it was a waste. But we do have and use the hell out of wild land gear but only for grass fires.