Chemical Suit Procedures
DEPARTMENTS
TRAINING NOTEBOOK
Hazardous materials are the two words most certain to draw a crowd anywhere two or more firefighters gather to bat the breeze. People talk about getting a couple of chemical encapsulating suits and hanging out their shingle as a haz-mat team.
As those truly involved in the chemical emergency response business know, buying suits (if you happen to buy the correct models in the first place) is only the beginning. We intend to limit ourselves in this article strictly to the basics of how to use chemical encapsulating protective clothing correctly. Money spent on buying the best is wasted if the suit is worn in a way that defeats its purpose.
Proper protection for a haz-mat incident begins in the planning stage. The initial selection of protective clothing should be based on the chemicals in your coverage area; during an actual response, selection should be based on the specific chemical involved.
Chemical protective suit manufacturers provide compatibility charts for assistance in selecting the correct suit. If the charts aren’t checked for compatibility with the chemicals involved, a person may be sent into the hot zone with equipment that won’t provide adequate protection. Keep in mind that no single suit material is compatible with all chemicals. It’s very important to check that the suit selected and all that suit’s components are compatible with the products that might be encountered.
In addition to choosing the proper suit or suits, a decision must be made about self-contained breathing apparatus. While there’s a wide range of breathing devices on the market, we believe the fire service in its response to haz-mat incidents has been well served by positive-pressure SCBA. The choice of the 30or 60-minute model will be based on local working expectations and budget constraints. Bear in mind the time it can take to perform the following tasks: fully don the suit after going on air supply; travel to the entry point; move to the actual work site; work through the task (or through a segment of the task as allowed by available air supply); travel out of the work area; undergo decontamination; and remove the suit.
Many haz-mat response personnel believe that the 60-minute unit meets more of their needs than does the 30minute unit. However, the choice is yours.
Before donning a chemical encapsulating suit, inspect it. If an inspection record is available, check it to ensure that the suit is safe to wear.
A tag system will help keep track of the suit’s inspection status. The tag should be attached to either the suit’s zipper or the individual storage container, and indicate when the suit has been decontaminated, cleaned, and inspected since its last use. However, the wearer is still responsible for inspecting the suit prior to use.
A physical inspection of the suit should then be conducted, checking for holes, tears, and abrasions. All damage the suit’s ability to keep the chemicals out. Also, the attachments— gloves, boots, facepiece, and so on—should be checked to ensure they’re properly attached and in good working condition.
There are several suggestions we’d like to make for safety and, in some cases, comfort. We recommend that the standard station or work uniform not be worn under the chemicalresistant suit, but rather, a pair of cotton, Nomex, or disposable coveralls. The coveralls will absorb sweat and prevent the uncomfortable feeling experienced when bare skin comes in contact with the inside of the suit. Because personnel may be spending a while inside chemicalresistant suits, it’s important that they be as comfortable as possible and still be adequately protected. During doffing, the coveralls may also provide some protection from any contamination left on the suit as the result of poor decontamination procedures. Where flammables are involved, Nomex coveralls are recommended, because they’ll provide better protection during operations should a fire occur.
Chemical suits may come with permanently attached boots, booties (disposable, lightweight covers worn under the boot) or removable boots, or there might not be any foot covering provided at all.
Chemical suits equipped with booties usually have splash guards attached to the legs. The splash guards should be pulled over the boots to prevent any chemicals from entering the top of the boots.
We recommend that a pair of heavy socks be worn under the booties to improve comfort. Boots must be worn over the booties; never wear regular work shoes over the booties of a chemical suit. They’ll be too tight; they won’t provide any protection; and if they become contaminated, they’ll have to be properly disposed of. After donning the suit, a pair of turnout or other boots must be worn unless the suit has boots attached.
Regular firefighter turnout boots are made of neoprene rubber and have some chemical-resistant qualities. However, turnout boots used for regular fire suppression activities aren’t recommended for use during chemical incidents because they might become damaged, no longer providing the necessary protection. Either turnout boots reserved specifically for chemical incidents or other chemicalresistant boots should be worn.
Gloves can become a dangerous chink in the armor of protective clothing; be sure they’re compatible with the material involved. A second pair of gloves should always be worn over the suit’s permanently attached gloves. This will protect the permanently attached gloves from mechanical damage as well as excessive chemical exposure. Experience has shown that double gloving should always be used when working with compressed gases. In these cases, the product being released is cold—well below 0° F. The second layer of gloving provides added protection against the cold and the hazards of the product.
But the gloves worn for protection from chemicals should never be standard-issue firefighter’s gloves. They’re made from materials which will actually absorb the chemicals, and they have seams which will allow the entry of chemicals. It may be appropriate to wear standard-issue firefighter’s gloves over chemicalresistant gloves to prevent mechanical damage. However, should the turnout gloves suffer any chemical exposure, they must be properly disposed of.
Into the hot zone
Before any team member enters the hot zone (an area where the potential for exposure to the chemical exists), back-up personnel must be dressed in appropriate chemical-protective clothing, ready to provide any necessary assistance or rescue to the personnel operating in the hot zone.
The confinement and lack of air circulation within chemical-resistant clothing can make the wearer very uncomfortable. The wearer’s body temperature will increase, and continue to increase, as long as the person remains in the suit. Many of us feel that 15 to 20 minutes is the longest workers should stay in the hot zone at any one stretch. Simply exiting the hot zone won’t lower the body temperature, but spraying the wearer with cool water during decontamination helps. The wearer must remove the suit and rest for several minutes for the body temperature to return to normal.
The incident commander makes sure that, during operations involving chemical emergencies, personnel qualified and equipped to provide basic life support procedures are standing by. These people must have the capability to transport injured personnel to a medical facility.
Decontamination
Safe operating procedures may limit the amount of contamination involved, but contamination is a danger that must be addressed. All personnel, clothing (suits, boots, gloves, and so on) and equipment leaving a contaminated area—whether to change cylinders or for final clean-up—must be decontaminated. In some instances, it may be appropriate to properly dispose of the contaminated clothing or equipment.
At a minimum, personnel exiting the hot zone should be washed off with a hose line or safety shower. This is intended as a gross decontamination measure, which removes lighter surface contaminants. When deemed appropriate, personnel should have the exposed surface areas of their protective clothing gently scrubbed with a mild detergent in warm water and then rinsed before doffing the chemical-resistant clothing. When the exposure to chemical contaminants has been more severe, at least three washings and rinses should be performed. Solutions and rinses should be applied with long-handled brushes or from lowpressure, low-volume nozzles.
Decontamination personnel must also be dressed in a level of protective clothing and respiratory protection appropriate to the contaminant and contamination levels. At a minimum, decontamination personnel should be wearing coated, disposable coveralls, chemical-resistant gloves, boots, and face protection. They may also need respiratory protection, depending on the hazards of the materials involved and the likelihood of contamination.
If the decontamination team should inadvertently become contaminated, its members will need to undergo decontamination procedures. Precautions are especially necessary when performing decontamination of vehicles and equipment, and when use of high-pressure equipment or techniques will expose the decontamination team to the hazardous chemical. In these cases, the decontamination team must wear protective clothing and respiratory protection to prevent exposure from any expected contaminants, and the decontamination team will require decontamination.
Post-use treatment of chemical suits is extremely important. Proper care of the suits will lengthen their life expectancy. After use, chemical-resistant suits should be thoroughly washed and rinsed with lukewarm water inside and out, and then hung to dry in an area with good ventilation and out of direct sunlight. Do not hang the suits in a boiler room or an area with heat lamps or a hot air blower. The temperature of the drying area should not exceed 100° F.
Before chemical-resistant suits go back into service, they must be checked for damage. All suits should be given a visual check for discoloration, stiffness, softness, holes, and separating seams. In addition, fully encapsulating suits should be given an air leakage test.
When placed back in service, the suits should be stored in a clean, dry location away from anything that could damage them. They must be protected from the direct rays of the sun and kept at a temperature of no more than 100° F.
Incidentally, several haz-mat teams are using fully encapsulating, laminated, disposable chemical suits in place of expensive, reusable suits. Some of the new materials and manufacturing methods produce a disposable suit comparable in chemical protection to reusable suits. When using disposable suits, only gross decontamination procedures are necessary, because the suit is placed in an appropriate container for disposal after use. This eliminates the need for complete decontamination and cleaning, drying, and testing.
We strongly recommend that standard operating procedures be developed for the use of chemical-resistant clothing and that drills be conducted frequently using those procedures. In the world of haz-mat emergency response, there’s no substitute for experience.
