New and Improved Ensembles
Clearer NFPA standards will make it easier for first responders to select their ensembles. Grant money increasingly acknowledges the same standards.
Editor's note: End users' confusion about multiple classes of protective apparel will ease as they become familiar with new editions of NFPA standards for responders' protective apparel, says Jeffrey O. Stull, president of International Personnel Protection Inc. of Austin, Texas. He discussed the new standards, linkage between respirator and clothing testing, what's driving responders' and industrial workers' apparel purchases, and other issues in a Feb. 16, 2006, conversation with Occupational Health & Safety's editor. Excerpts from the conversation follow:
Three important NFPA standards--1991, Standard on Vapor-Protective Ensembles for Hazardous Materials Emergencies; 1992, Standard on Liquid Splash-Protective Ensembles and Clothing for Hazardous Materials Emergencies; and 1994, Standard on Protective Ensembles for Chemical/Biological Terrorism Incidents--were updated recently. What do hazmat team leaders and emergency response personnel need to know about the new editions?
Jeffrey Stull: Actually, the new editions of NFPA 1991 and 1992 did go into effect early last year, in February 2005. The most substantial difference in NFPA 1991 addressed encapsulating suits, or what are called vapor-protective ensembles. This change was to include a requirement for mandatorily protecting against chemical warfare agents.
Encapsulating suits covered by this standard now have to protect against both conventional industrial chemicals plus chemical warfare agents. In the past 2000 edition, the chemical warfare agent part of the requirements had been an option. This change was actually part of an overall strategy by the NFPA Technical Committee on Hazardous Materials Protective Clothing and Equipment. This is because in NFPA 1994, which is a standard that's broader-based--for first responders in general, not just hazmat teams--there used to be something called a Class 1, as there is in the current 2001 edition. Class 1 was an encapsulating suit with a very high-end performance. However, the committee felt that for the general population of first responders, which would include not just hazmat people, but firefighters and law enforcement and emergency medical technicians, the high end for first responder personal protective equipment didn't need to be Class 1; that Class 1 was really a specialized product that would be relegated to specialized groups like hazardous materials response teams.
So that was the rationale for taking it out of 1994?
Yes. And also, as you well know, these encapsulating suits are the most encumbering, the most stressful, the most difficult to put on and use, compared to all the other kinds of clothing. The intent of the NFPA technical committee was to set an upper-end requirement for first responders that would provide sufficient protection while permit the types of functions expected of first responders during a WMD incident.
Tell me about 1994's timetable. Is the new edition still being worked on?
Work on the standard has been completed, but there has been a delay. The NFPA has a process where if someone wants to appeal a standard, they can put in that appeal . . . that's what happened. One industry representative was not satisfied with the way that their comments were handled and has asked for the NFPA to reconsider those comments. The consequence has been to delay until sometime this summer. The new edition of 1994 is now expected to come out in late summer 2006.
There will be some big changes in 1994 as part of the new edition. First of all, there will still be three classes, but the committee removed Class 1 when it became part of NFPA 1991. There are Class 2 and Class 3, but what the committee did was to make the distinctions between the classes simpler, since it was difficult to understand when to apply each class. The committee decided that Class 2 is the kind of ensemble a first responder would wear when an SCBA was required. Class 3 is the type of clothing that would be worn when an air-purifying respirator or a powered air-purifying respirator was permitted.
Okay. That's a lot clearer and simpler, I agree.
The new system is a lot clearer. Essentially, when you have an IDLH condition requiring self-contained breathing apparatus, you wear Class 2. When you have less than an IDLH that permits an air-purifying respirator or a PAPR, then you can wear Class 3. This represents a much, much cleaner distinction between Class 2 and 3 than existed before.
What's Class 4?
Class 4 is for biological and radiological particulates only. That really ensued, I think, because the committee realized after the anthrax issue that a whole range of clothing was being worn, from nothing to encapsulating suits. . . . Whether it be anthrax or even if it was the residue of a dirty bomb and was just a particulate issue, we thought there should be a particulates-only classification.
This article originally appeared in the September 2006 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.