By Jason Caughey
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The American fire service is built on tradition. Traditions like valor, honor, integrity and pride are the root of the service that we provide our communities. We can lose track or confuse traditions with image or “the look” of traditions. If you want to test the theory, just bring up what color apparatus should be, or what nozzle to use or if you really want a fight, ask what helmet to wear. Any one of these topics will guarantee you a heated and passionate discussion.
One of the hot topics today is helmets—traditional or European? The traditional helmet is an iconic image of the American fire service. But, is it about the helmet or the image? How does performance and safety fit into the decision to change helmets? Is it about the helmet or have we changed so much that we must press pause and let all the changes settle in?
The question today is how do we continue to advance the fire service past our traditions? If you look back at our history, many of the hot topics that we argue over haven’t always been a tradition. Think about it, before Hugh Halligan developed the Halligan tool the fire service tradition was the claw tool or Kelley tool. Before George Hurst patented the first hydraulic rescue tool the tradition was hand saws, porta powers and hammer and chisels. The point is what we consider a traditional tool was, at one point, a controversial new tool. This raises the thought that if we were truly a traditional fire service, we would still be utilizing the bucket brigade.
As Chief Alan Brunacini used to say, “Firefighters hate two things, the way things are and change.” This may be true but if you look at all that the fire service has changed over the last 50 years, we are actually very good at changing.
So how do you manage change? How do we test research and keep an open mind on new technology and research? Recently my department took a serious look at the European-style helmet and our goal was to keep an open mind while examining the advantages and disadvantages associated with our helmets. The following describes the approach we took when assessing the helmets.
For this test we conducted wear tests on two European-style helmets—the MSA XF1 and the Rosenbauer-titan Pro.
To begin with, we addressed the elephant in the room…the look of the helmet. Before we conducted a single test, we wanted an open discussion about the appearance. We started this with discussing why are the traditional helmets designed the way they are and why are European helmets designed the way they are. The large brim on the American helmet was designed to prevent embers and debris from sliding down our neck. Before we wore hoods and had high collars on turnout coats, the helmet brim was the only protection for the back of our neck. The crown and ribs of the helmet were the method to sew the panels of leather together. Today those ribs give some compression support, but truly are for looks.
The question becomes, are those features necessary today?
The European helmet is designed to integrate with an SCBA facepiece, limiting the amount of exposure around the face and head from heat. The European helmet removes the large brim to allow for more contoured interphase between the turnout jacket collar and SCBA bottle and pack making it less restrictive.
When we started to define why each helmet was built the way it was, and the history behind the design, we were able to open the minds of our firefighters. With that said, the pure look of the helmet was, and still is, a hot topic.
The next step for us was to define what we needed in performance of our helmet. When we took the “look” out of the equation we came up with three goals for our test: fit, comfort and performance.
We asked members to address the fit of the helmet with and without an SCBA. To test fit, we had members perform two fire service tasks: extrication and interior fire attack.
The comments about European-style helmets following the extrication scenario included that the eye protection was built-in and easy to use, the firefighter didn’t have to take the helmet off to crawl into the vehicle for patient assessment and one member’s neck and head did not hurt after wearing the helmet for an extended period of time.
Following the fire attack scenario, firefighters said there was improved mobility when crawling in the burn building with SCBA on and that there was less fatigue and pressure on their head. The design was said to be agile and streamlined, allowing for faster donning of the helmet and facepiece and the “fit with the SCBA mask was super comfortable.”
During the testing process we also wanted to address the accessory options of both a traditional and European-style helmets. We focused on three accessories: eye protection, lighting systems and radio interphase.
The XF1’s integrated lighting system features lights on both sides of the face with pinpoint accuracy of the stream providing light to where your eyes were looking. The on/off switch was difficult to access with gloves and decontamination was difficult.
The Titan Pro’s integrated lighting system was mounted on top of the helmet and allowed the light to shine down into the work area, but the high setting was extremely bright. The on/off switch was easy to manipulate, and decontamination was easy.
Both integrated light systems were noticeably better than our traditional exterior mounted flashlights.
Both European helmets were fitted with two forms of integrated eye protection: full face shield and eye shield. The systems were integrated into the helmets and allowed for streamlined use and the eye shield was simple and easy to use during the extrication scenario. The eye protection did not snag on any objects, but decontamination was challenging.
Both European helmets had the ability to have integrated speakers and boom microphones built into them.
We tested a protype of the XF1 and the benefit of a speaker over your ear was dramatically noticed during both tests. The ability to hear the radio was improved greatly, but there was some reduction in ambient noise which was both good and bad. The boom microphones were bulky with and without the SCBA facepieces.
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After completing all our testing, the question became, “Which helmet was right for our organization?” I think this was one of the most important questions we had to address. When we looked at the performance, it was overwhelmingly noticeable that the European helmets through design and features outperformed our current helmets. Both traditional and European helmets meet the same safety standard. We assume the lighter helmet and more ergonomic helmet would be safer, but the data is not there yet to validate that statement.
So, making the change or not to a European helmet became a battle about features and how those features fit our needs. One of the statements made during this process was, “Can we have two helmets?” The idea was to have the traditional for everyday use and public function, but the European-style helmet for working fires. I think that statement summarized where our organization stood regarding helmets.
My recommendation is that it is our responsibility to look at all technology and test it at the local level. See if it fits your community’s needs, organizational needs and operational needs. Test the technology to see if it works for you, then let the results help you identify if you should adopt it. Not all fire departments have the same needs. Our organization determined that having either our traditional helmet or European helmet would be determined on an individual basis.
Bio
Jason Caughey is the fire chief of Laramie County Fire District #2 in Cheyenne, WY, and an adjunct professor for Laramie County Community College, where he teaches on the principles of fire behavior. Prior to arriving in Cheyenne in 2011, he was the fire chief of Gore Hill Fire Rescue in Great Falls, MT. He also spent 10 years working for the Montana Fire Services Training School as a regional instructor and regional training manager for the state of Montana. Caughey has been an active member in “Kill the Flashover” and served as a technical member of the UL Positive Pressure test committee and a lead instructor for the Ottawa Project “Knowledge to Practice.” Caughey has a bachelor’s degree in fire science from Columbia University.
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