Wildland firefighters use a basic set of equipment.

Personal protection equipment (PPE) puts a safety barrier between the firefighters body and flames or related hazards, reducing the possibility of injury. The barrier is created by bulk, chemicals, color, or design.  PPE has saved firefighters from injury, discomfort, and even death.

• Fire Resistant Clothing protects firefighters skin from radiant heat and prevent embers from igniting their clothing.
• Fire Shelters are fire resistant tents that each firefighter is required to carry.
• Line Packs are used to carry fire shelters, water, and other gear.

There are some firefighting duties that require very specific tools that are needed in additional to the standard gear.  A Lookout, for example, needs to carry a radio, compass, map, binoculars, and a fire weather kit.  A Crew Leader needs a radio, compass, map, and a GPS.  Some of the additional personal equipment used in wildland firefighting operations are:

• Fire Weather Instrument Kit
• Chain Saw Protection Equipment 
• Hearing Protection
• Binoculars
• Head Lamp

Fire Resistant Shirts and Pants

Nomex Shirt

Nomex Pants

The main items in the personal protection equipment (PPE) that firefighters are required during duty are a loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt and loose-fitting, cuffless pants. Both shirt and trousers must be made of fire resistant fabric. Fire resistant clothing protect firefighters skin from radiant heat and prevent embers from igniting their clothing. The shirts are a bright yellow color to improve the ability of air personnel and other ground staff to locate firefighters when they are working in heavily vegetated places.

It is recommended that firefighters wear a short-sleeved t-shirt, underwear, and socks under fire clothing and boots. T-shirts and underwear should be 100% cotton or a 100% flame-resistant blend. Socks should be cotton, wool, or a blend of flame-resistant fibers. Undergarments and socks should not be made of 100% or a high percentage of polyester, nylon, or acrylic.

Gloves

Fireman V Gloves

Heavy leather gloves are essential for protecting hands from burns and cuts. Firefighting gloves should be a nongauntlet style so as not to funnel hot embers into the glove. Some agencies require their firefighters to wear specific types of gloves. Gloves that have holes or tears should be discarded and another pair placed into service. Often leather gloves get wet on the fireline because of leaking water hoses. If wet, lay out flat to dry.

Goggles

Goggles

Goggles the eyes from dirt, debris, metal shards from tools, and hot ashes. Wildland firefighters are exposed to many hazards to the eyes. These hazards include, but are not limited to, debris in the air from wind gusts; dirt and debris propelled from chopping and grubbing operations with a hand tool; metal shards broken off hand tool edges after striking a rock; and hot ash reacting to application of cool water. Some styles of goggles protect eyes from smoke. Without goggles the eyes typically water profusely and blur the field of vision of the firefighter. Blurry eyes may have other safety hazards to firefighters who continue travelling or using his or her tool.

Boots

Wildland Fire Fighting Boots

Wildland firefighters are required to wear specially engineered boots that meet the NFPA 1977 certification.

Hard Hats

Helmet and Head Lamp

Wildland firefighters are required to wear hard hats when they are on duty.

All firefighters are required to carry a fire shelter when they are on duty.  An essential part of the certification requirements for firefighers is to attend annual refresher training where they must successfully deploy a fire shelter. 

Fire Shelter

The highest priority for firefighters is to avoid being entrapped by a fire.  If a firefighter is accidentally entrapped, he must protect his lungs and airways.  The firefighter must dispose of all flammable items and get inside the shelter and on ground before the flames reach him.  The fire shelter should be deployed in a spot where there are no fuels on the ground.

The greatest threats to the firefighter who is trapped by a fire are burns to the body and inhalation of hot gases which can cause asphyxiation.  A person can survive for a short period if the air temperatures are at 149°C  (300°F).  The environment outside the fire shelter will easily exceed these limits, but the fire shelter may save the life of a person inside.  Experiments on fire shelters show that the air temperature inside the shelter rose 80°C (176°F) when radiant heat is applied for 300 seconds.  When direct flames were applied to the shelter for 40 seconds, the temperature inside the shelter rose an additional 50°C (122°F).  Heat flux of 5 kilowatts per square meter will lead to a second degree burn in about 40 seconds on bare skin.  Heat flux from 300 seconds of radiant heat and forty seconds of direct flame produced peak heat fluxes of 1.5 and 1.3 killowatts per square meter, respectively.

Wildland Pack

Detachable Fire Fighting Back Pack

Wildland Fire Day Pack

BROKEN-LINK BROKEN-LINK

Firefighters must carry almost everything they need with them while they are on duty during a wildfire. Firefighters wear their packs throughout their shifts as they move across the landscape fighting the fire.

Firefighters carry a mixture of items they are required to carry and materials that they choose based on their own preferences. Typically, their packs hold water, food, a headlamp, extra batteries, matches, a space blanket, a signal mirror, compass, whistle, knife, extra socks, personal first aid kit, rain gear, extra clothing, maps, operational period plan, and toilet paper. Beside these items many line personnel also pack extra radio batteries, GPS receiver, weather monitoring instuments (sling psychrometer and wind meter or electronic psychometer with wind meter, relative humidity charts, recording book, pencil), fusees, fire shelter, fireline handbook, incidence reponse pocket guide, extra gloves, binoculars, sun screen, sun glasses, reading glasses, fuel bottles, chain oil bottles, extra spark plugs for saw, file with guard and handle, eye protection, hearing protection, and allergy medication.

The average weight of packs is about 40-50 pounds. Some firefighters prefer to carry this weight in back packs that hang from the top of the shoulders while others choose hip backs that rest on the lower back. Hip packs are better for people who are digging hand line and are bent over most of the day because back packs tend to slide over the head. Firefighters spending their day in an upright position usually opt for a pack that sits closer to the top of their shoulders.

Fire Weather Kit

Firefighters use fire weather kits to monitor wind direction, wind speed, and relative humidity, the 3 critical weather patterns that help them determine suppression tactics and strategies.

The core tools in a fire weather instrument kit are:

• a wind meter
• a compass to calculate wind direction and fire location
• tools to calculate relative humidity that measures dry and wet bulb temperatures (e.g., psychrometer, slide rule)

Additional kit items might include a notebook and pencil to record weather measurements and related data such as location, exposure (ridgetop, slope), vegetation density, elevation, aspect, and cloud cover. Firefighters can buy a pre-assembled weather kit or build their own.

Wind Meter

Pocket Wind Meter

The wind meter has an operational range from 2-60 mph. Wind speed and direction are measured at eye-level. The user faces the wind and holds the instrument so the wind speed can be watched. Thsi instrument requires the operator to constantly watch the instrument to determine average speed and strength of wind gusts. The data should be recorded separately because there is no storage for this information on the instrument.

The electronic instrument specification sheet that accompanies the wind meter lists the minimum and maximum wind speeds, the units of measurement, and the accuracy of those measurements. Wind meters have several measurement units to choose from (feet/second, miles per hour, kilometers per hour). The wind meters can recall average speed and maximum wind speeds for the time the instrument is powered on.

Psychrometer

Sling Psychrometer

Psychrometric Slide Rule

The two most common types of psychrometers are the sling psychrometer and the electronic psychrometer.

The sling psychrometer is the standard instrument used to determine relative humidity. It consists of two glass thermometers with ranges of 30-110°F. One thermometer, the dry bulb, is unmodified and measures the current air temperature. The other thermometer, the wet bulb, has a muslin wick tied around the bulb that is moistened with water. The frame holding the two thermometers is swung in a circlular motion until the wet bulb temperature stops declining. With these two measurements a person can use a slide ruler to calculate relative humidity and/or the dew point.

The electronic psychrometer displays current air temperature and relative humidity. The electronic psychrometer is a 5-ounce hand held, all-in-one, instrument that measures current air temperature, relative humidity (not adjusted for elevation or latitude) and wind speed. The limitations on the operational range of the electronic psychrometer are listed on the specification sheet that accompanies its purchase. Not all electronic psychrometers have the same operational ranges. Operational ranges must be known and carefully considered before operating this type of instrument.

Both types of psychrometers need to adjust to current air temperatures prior to taking measurements. These instruments are usually carried inside packs or pockets until used and as such are subjected to radiant heat from the body, fire, and sun. The sling psychrometer consists of glass thermometers which adjust quickly to temperature changes. However, the electronic psychrometers components are contained within a closed plastic shell that may take several minutes to adjust to the changing air temperatures. If the current air temperature (dry bulb) is 90°F but the temperature inside the case is 95°F, with a wet bulb temperature of 60°F, the relative humidity will be 13% and 8% respectively. It is important to use both instruments in the shade to derive current air temperature and allow the instruments to adjust to the temperature of the air they will be measuring.

The psychrometric slide rule and tables determine relative humidity to the nearest degree from 0-100%. The psychrometric slide rule has a dry bulb range of 60-110°F and a wet bulb range of 40-120°F. Tables generally mimic the operational range of the psychrometric slide rule for both dry bulb and wet bulb temperatures. The slide rule, however, is not adjustable to differences in air pressure that result from changes in elevation and latitude. For instance, a slide rule will report a 10% relative humidity for all elevations with a dry bulb temperature of 90°F and a wet bulb temperature of 58°F. Tables accurate to the nearest 2000 feet evelation will display a relative humidity with the same dry and wet bulb measurements given previously as 15% at 6,000 feet. A 5°F difference in relative humidity may have important implications to firefighters when temperatures are high and fuel moisture is low.

Chain Saw Chaps

In many cases, chain saw operators who work on wildfires or prescribed fires are required to wear PPE. Chain saw protection gear includes eight items of personal protection equipment (PPE): chaps, a hardhat, eye protection, hearing protection, gloves, fire resistant shirts and pants, a fire shelter, and firefighting boots.

Chain saw chaps are designed to clog a running chain saw upon contact to prevent the operator from sustaining large jagged lacerations. They are typically made of several layers of Kevlar sandwiched between outer layers of a Cordura nylon cover. The Kevlar is designed to clog a running chain saw to make it stop. The Cordura is designed to resist water, mildew, oil, and abrasions. Chaps are fastened about the waist and legs with adjustable straps.

The chaps should be long enough to overlap a persons boots by at least 2 inches. Chaps are available in standard coverage that protects 180 degrees of the legs or extended coverage that protects 220 degrees of the circumference of the legs.

Earmuffs for Hearing Protection

Foam Ear Plugs

People who work near noisy equipment should wear hearing protection.  Hearing protection comes in a variety of styles such as soft foam earplugs inserted into the ear canal and earmuffs that cover the entire ear.  There are a variety of push-in foam earplugs.  These earplugs are small for easy storage, light weight, quick insertion and removal, and provide enough hearing capacity to understand radio transmissions and crew communication.

Wildland firefighters use head lamps to see in darkened conditions as well as to be seen by others. 

Helmet and Head Lamp

There are numereous styles of head lamps on the market today.  Whatever style is chosen it must be able to attach to an approved hard hat without causing the hard hat to shift on the firefighters head.  It should also have a spare bulb stored somewhere within the lamp housing for easy assess.  It is also desirable that batteries last through the operational period without having to be changed in the dark.

Firefighters should carry head lamps with them during the day as well as at night.  One reason for having a head lamp during the day is that often a crew ends up walking off the fireline following the end of the operational shift.  In many cases, part of this hike invovles travelling cross-country in the dark.  Another reason for carrying a head lamp is that often firefighters are delayed until after dark from leaving the fireline. 

Since head lamps are often stored and transported in day pack, the firefighter should employee a method to prevent battery drainage.  This might include inserting batteries into the battery housing improperly or placing a paper barrier between batteries and light connections.  Firefighters should also carry extra batteries to fit their head lamps.

The prudent firefighter will check their head lamp before each operational period to assure that eveything is in working order.