how often are you required ro replace turnour gear?

[FireMedic049]

Replacing gear is just fine and dandy, as long as you need to. Having a blanket statement for gear replacement service wide is about the craziest thing I have ever heard. There is no way a department who sees 2 structure fires a year will need to replace gear as much as one who sees 2 structure fires a shift. If it doesn't get dirty, it doesn't get washed. If it never gets pulled out of the toolbox in the back of the POV except for training, it sees no sunlight. Gear that sees 1 or 2 live traning burns a year plus the occasional working job should have no problem making it to 10 years. Gear that gets damaged gets inspected and if need be retired.


The 10 year replacement rule does nothing but look out for the best interest of manufacterers, not firefighters and fire departments. If you think anything else than that, open your eyes.

My eyes are open and my brain is engaged and I really don't see the need for the amount of outcry regarding this particular issue.

First of all, the vast majority of fire departments are probably already replacing their TOG at 10 years or sooner. So, the one's who will potentially "suffer" from this will likely be the small, poor, rural departments who are probably already responding to calls in apparatus older than the "retirement age" recommended in NFPA 1971.

Secondly, given the speed with which most technologies change these days, it's kind of hard to believe that keeping firefighters in "current" TOG is not in their best interest. Yes, the manufacturers could benefit from this, but again the departments who will likely find themselves up against this "deadline" are going to be small and not purchasing large quantities of TOG. Sure, if you add up all of the small departments, the quantities start to add up some, but it's still probably pretty small compared to the amount the larger departments replace.

Additionally, and perhaps the most important things to remember is that 1) NFPA 1851 is a voluntary standard and not specifically law and 2) most departments are probably already not fully following the "meat" of NFPA 1851 - how/when their TOG is cleaned, inspected and repaired. So would they necessarily be worried about non-compliance with this one part of one NFPA standard?

[GTRider245]

For the record, the small, lower budget departments are always the ones who suffer from trying to comply with NFPA. No matter which standard in particular we are discussing.

The last part of your post is what I agree with. Departments seem to pick and choose what they want to comply with when it is convinient.

[PaladinKnight]

I find it interesting there are two concurrent threads going on this NFPA issue.

They both have moved the expected direction.

NFPA is a set of Standards. Do you really think for a minute that the majority of Fire Departments are close to compliant?

If it is adopted as law in a municipality or a county, do you really think they took the time to read and undertsand it, or did they just accept it because it saved them alot of time instead of writing their own code?

If the NFPA is the basis that we will judge fire dept related lawsuits, then how many jurisdictions have blindly open themselves up to litagations they can never defend?

If this is where it is going, then NFPA might not become such an issue when the cities and counties (the Taxpayers) lose millions of dollars in settlements.

They can talk about this all day long. But the realty is, there a just a handfull of departments that pass muster. But we seem to pick and choose which codes we wish to talk about depending on which issue we want to fight over.

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The firefighters want new PPE, but the town can't afford it, there is no extra money since revenue is down during the recession.

The FFs go public and say it is a safety issue. The town still can't afford it.

The FF take it national... the town can't afford it and open their books to confirm it.

The FFs demand justice and decide to sue, claiming injuries over old PPE. Guess what? The town still can't afford it, but the taxpayer will pay the bill. They always do.

What happens when the town and the taxpayers decide they can't afford the firefighters. It is happening right now guys. And it isn't over yet.

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Firemedic: I don't know how many fire departments you run around with but I assure you, the vast majority of fire departments do not replace their gear every 10 years. Many replace it as needed; which means, when it is damaged, burned, shredded, torn, cracked, or falling off the firefighter. But this is not the same thing since some of that gear might be 5, 10, 15, and 20 years old.

NFPA has just created a viscious cycle where we will always be chasing our tail. Just when you get one thing knocked out, they change it thus raising the bar. The departments that were not even close to compliant are just pushed that much further behind.

So who has the answer on this massive "we must do something" issue?

More money won't solve it. More Government intervention won't solve it. More taxes won't solve it. More mandates won't solve it.

Here's an idea... lets just make up more rules that no one can understand and keep up with.

I will not dispute that there are many departments that should replace their gear, some more frequently than others. But the driving force no matter how you cut this... is you must have the money to do it. The 10 year Standard is there. 10 years might be too long in your department, it might be too short somewhere else.

But when it is a fact there are a vast number of departments that operate on less than $100,000 each year. Unless you buy a set every year or two, you are not going to replace very much gear at one time and still leave anything else to operate with.... which means there is another Standard we get to ignore this year since we are buying gear. Sorry guys... we can't afford to replace the pump on the truck.

You guys that live out there in the real world speak up on this... You're living this exact nightmare. Tell everyone how rich your department is and how you're compliant with the Standards.

It is this simple:

ARE YOU COMPLIANT WITH THE NFPA STANDARDS? YES NO

[FireMedic049]

I find it interesting there are two concurrent threads going on this NFPA issue.

They both have moved the expected direction.

NFPA is a set of Standards. Do you really think for a minute that the majority of Fire Departments are close to compliant?

I don't.

If it is adopted as law in a municipality or a county, do you really think they took the time to read and undertsand it, or did they just accept it because it saved them alot of time instead of writing their own code?

If the NFPA is the basis that we will judge fire dept related lawsuits, then how many jurisdictions have blindly open themselves up to litagations they can never defend?

If this is where it is going, then NFPA might not become such an issue when the cities and counties (the Taxpayers) lose millions of dollars in settlements.

They can talk about this all day long. But the realty is, there a just a handfull of departments that pass muster. But we seem to pick and choose which codes we wish to talk about depending on which issue we want to fight over.

Good points.

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Firemedic: I don't know how many fire departments you run around with but I assure you, the vast majority of fire departments do not replace their gear every 10 years. Many replace it as needed; which means, when it is damaged, burned, shredded, torn, cracked, or falling off the firefighter. But this is not the same thing since some of that gear might be 5, 10, 15, and 20 years old.

I think you may be misinterpreting the point I was making. I was not talking about departments just arbitrarily deciding to replace all of their gear. I was trying to make the point that the majority of departments are replacing their TOG as needed and that the need to do so probably results in TOG being replaced before it's 10 years old. This situation essentially renders that part of the standard irrelevant to them.

I was also trying to make the point that most departments in general and more specifically the ones likely to be coming up against this "time limit" are not following NFPA 1851 standards for the care of the gear they have now. Regardless of the reason, if they are not following the "meat" of the standard now and it isn't a "problem" for them, then why would not following this one part be a "problem"?

Additionally, how many of these smaller departments with limited resources have apparatus older than what is recommended in NFPA 1971? Again, regardless of the reason, if non-compliance in this area isn't a "problem" for them, then why would using gear older than 10 years necessarily be a "problem" too?

I work at only 1 fire department, but have had significant contact with many others in the area thru my side job in EMS and prior days as a volunteer. In my experience, it appears that the vast majority of the gear is replaced by 10 years, particularly lately given the ability to get AFG money to do so.

ARE YOU COMPLIANT WITH THE NFPA STANDARDS? YES NO

Yes in some areas, No in many more.

[PaladinKnight]

FM: Trust me sir, I am not trying to bust your bunker with this and I do not mean any disrespect whatsoever. We are all on the same side here.

You nailed the point exactly when you state if they ignore one part, why would they be concerned about another; (nutshell version).

We seem to agree on most of the points being discussed. Anything that we differ on is not that great.

You answered the compliancy question with the Number #1 exact answer that we see... Yes & No.

Again, I'm not trying to be difficult, but the answer is No.

You can be compliant in some areas all day long, but if you are not compliant with everything, then you are not compliant. There aren't any extra points based on a curve. We are not compared against each other. We are held to the same standard.

If it sounded like I was attacking you, I wasn't. I was asking subjective questions that everyone should consider.

Thank you for taking the time to share your insight.

[FireMedic049]

FM: Trust me sir, I am not trying to bust your bunker with this and I do not mean any disrespect whatsoever. We are all on the same side here.

No problem. This medium isn't always an easy way to adequately covey a thought.

You nailed the point exactly when you state if they ignore one part, why would they be concerned about another; (nutshell version).

We seem to agree on most of the points being discussed. Anything that we differ on is not that great.

You answered the compliancy question with the Number #1 exact answer that we see... Yes & No.

Again, I'm not trying to be difficult, but the answer is No.

You can be compliant in some areas all day long, but if you are not compliant with everything, then you are not compliant. There aren't any extra points based on a curve. We are not compared against each other. We are held to the same standard.

If it sounded like I was attacking you, I wasn't. I was asking subjective questions that everyone should consider.

Maybe I misunderstood the question a little. If the question's intent was are we fully compliant, then clearly our answer would be No. My answer was pretty much an acknowledgment that there are some standards and parts of some standards the we are compliant with, but there's probably more that we aren't compliant with.

Thank you for taking the time to share your insight.

You're welcome. Anytime.