Firefighter Cancer Registry Act introduced in House
The Firefighter Cancer Registry Act (HR 4625), introduced in the House of Representatives in February by Congressmen Richard Hanna (NY-22) and Bill Pascrell Jr. (NJ-9), would establish a specialized national cancer registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve collection capabilities and activities related to monitoring cancer incidence among firefighters.
“Cancer in the fire service knows no boundaries,” explains Congressional Fire Services Institute Executive Director Bill Webb. “It afflicts career and volunteer firefighters in every region of the country and among all ethnicities. By establishing a national cancer registry, the CDC and other research centers can better understand the risk factors of cancer among firefighters, which will benefit research efforts for finding a cure to this nefarious disease.”
FDSOA recipient of CFSI-NFFF award
The Fire Department Safety Officers Association (FDSOA) has been selected to receive the 2016 Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes Fire Service Safety Leadership Award, the Congressional Fire Services Institute and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation have announced. The award will be presented at the 28th Annual National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner on May 5, 2016, in Washington, DC.
The award is named in honor of Sen. (Ret.) Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, who was a strong advocate for our nation’s firefighters and rescue personnel during his 36-year career in Congress. The award recognizes organizations for outstanding contributions to firefighter health and safety. State Farm Insurance and VFIS are corporate supporters of the award program. Additional information is at http://www.firehero.org/2016/03/23/sarbanes-award-2016/.
Bill authorizes EMS Commemorative Work
In March, Sen. Christopher A. Coons (DE) introduced in the Senate a bill (S. 2628) that authorizes the National Emergency Medical Services Memorial Foundation to establish a commemorative work in the District of Columbia and its environs. The Foundation is to be solely responsible for accepting contributions for and paying the expenses of establishing the commemorative work.
The bill was read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
“Called to Care” theme of EMS campaign
“Called to Care” is the theme for this year’s national EMS STRONG campaign, according to sponsors American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT). The campaign “continues to recognize and inspire emergency medical services (EMS) personnel, strengthen the profession on a national level, and expand and amplify National EMS Week (May 15-21),” ACEP and NAEMT explain. The campaign’s Web site EMSSTRONG.org provides inspiring EMS personnel stories and profiles and EMS Week ideas, activities, and templates. EMS personnel are invited to share EMS STRONG content with their own social media networks. Additional information on the campaign is available at EMSSTRONG.org.
NFPA releases “U.S. Fire Department Profile” through 2014
The National Fire Protection Association has released its annual report that provides a breakdown of the U.S. fire service, including statistics such as numbers of firefighters and departments, apparatus, volunteer vs. career, age, and more. It is available at http://www.nfpa.org/research/reports-and-statistics/the-fire-service/administration/us-fire-department-profile.
Refrigerants: Protecting the Environment and Ensuring Fire Safety
By James Tidwell
We can all point to innovations that have created substantial positive results in one segment of our society, only to learn that those same innovations have caused negative unintended consequences. Consider the trends related to constructing environmentally friendly buildings and communities. Many of these practices save water; result in cleaner air; save landfill space; and, in general, make our world a more healthful place to live and add to its longevity. Unfortunately, some of these same practices result in significantly greater fire risk, increase the degree of difficulty in fire suppression operations, and generally decrease the level of fire safety in our community. These conditions are largely caused by “innovators” and “practitioners” who fail to engage in meaningful dialog. There are numerous reasons for these failures, and no one group is to blame.
We have an opportunity to engage in meaningful dialog related to a new environmental movement. As you probably know, environmentalists and federal regulators are focusing on ways to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released into our atmosphere. Greenhouse gases have the potential to change atmospheric conditions and to contribute to climate change that could have disastrous long-term effects. One target of these efforts includes most of the refrigerants in use in the United States and elsewhere. The first phase of this effort culminated with the Montreal Protocol treaty of 1987 (ratified by the United States in 1988). That was the beginning of a long, continued effort to reduce negative impacts on our atmosphere. There are efforts to migrate away from refrigerants with high global warning potential (GWP) toward those that are more friendly to the environment. The automobile industry is already well underway with that transition; several manufacturers are already using the new refrigerants. In Europe, current refrigerants will be phased out no later than January 1, 2017; in the United States, the mandate will take effect with the 2021 model year. In fixed installations, the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a phase-out schedule beginning in 2017; different types of systems will adhere to different schedules. You may be asking, “What’s the problem? Why is Fire Engineering interested?” The problem is that almost all of the replacement refrigerants have some level of flammability-from very mildly flammable products that are hard to ignite and pose limited risk to pure hydrocarbons such as isobutene, which poses a significant fire and explosion risk. In the not-too-distant future, virtually all of the refrigerants being used in commercial, industrial, and residential applications will be flammable; the level of flammability and the safety parameters implemented to mitigate this new hazard will depend largely on the reaction of the fire service and other public safety officials.
The stable of refrigerants commonly used in the United States are primarily nonflammable and nontoxic (the notable exception is ammonia). The problem with most of the current refrigerants is that they have substantial GWP because of their impact on the earth’s atmosphere. Over the years, there has been a concerted effort on the part of some in the fire service and in the refrigeration industry to prevent a move to more flammable products such as propane and isobutene, which are excellent refrigerants and low in GWP, but they pose a fire danger that is unacceptable for most indoor applications.
Because of the pressure from environmentalists and government agencies around the world, the chemical industry set out on a mission to develop refrigerants that would not severely impact the atmosphere and would present a more acceptable fire risk than “natural” refrigerants such as the hydrocarbons previously mentioned. The chemical industry’s efforts have resulted in the development of more than a dozen refrigerants that have excellent refrigeration attributes without the negative effects on our atmosphere-but, they are somewhat flammable.
To understand the issues, it’s important to know the current regulatory scheme for refrigerants. The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is the leading standards developing organization for refrigerants and refrigerating equipment. There are two standards pertinent to the issue: ASHRAE 34, which classifies the refrigerants according to their flammability and toxicity characteristics, and ASHRAE 15, Safety Standard for Refrigeration Systems, which contains criteria for the safe installation and operation of refrigeration and air-conditioning systems.
Refrigerants are classified according to their flammability, from “1,” nonflammable, to “3,” very flammable (think propane). Class 2 refrigerants are in between and are fairly dangerous. Recently, the ASHRAE 34 committee recognized the low burning characteristics of some newly developed refrigerants by creating a classification of “2L” for refrigerants with a burning velocity of less than 10 cm/sec. These refrigerants require a high level of energy to ignite; once ignited, they burn very slowly, so the pressure rise in a room where they are ignited is relatively small.
The issues surrounding the migration from current refrigerants are very complicated, but the bottom line is as follows:
Dialog with the industry, good research, and timely regulations will help to make the transition from environmentally harmful refrigerants to more environmentally friendly ones without adding significant fire risk. However, if we don’t engage with industry, make our concerns known, and help craft mitigation criteria that will negate the fire risks, we could be experiencing an entirely new fire problem in the near future.
JAMES TIDWELL, a retired chief of the Fort Worth (TX) Fire Department, is an independent fire safety consultant at Tidwell Code Consulting.
LINE-OF-DUTY DEATHS
February 26. Inmate Firefighter Shawna Lynn Jones, 22, CAL-FIRE, Sacramento, CA: injuries sustained when a large rock rolled down the terrain hitting her in the head while fighting a wildfire on February 25.
March 2. Captain Peter Larlee, 55, East Millinocket (ME) Fire Department: cause of death unknown.
March 12. Firefighter/Safety Officer Earl J. Shoemaker, 68, Eagle Fire Company #2 – Hanover (PA) Fire Department: heart attack.
Source: USFA Firefighters Memorial Database
Fire Engineering Archives
