Firefighting Gear: Science, Superheroes, and the Great PFAS Mystery

In this episode of All Clear! Firefighter Health and Wellness, host Travis welcomes Brian Ormond, Associate Professor at NC State Wilson College of Textiles, to discuss focus areas including firefighting protective gear, emerging threats, and cancer prevention. Ormond explains the importance of ongoing research in PPE to adapt to changing fire hazards and enhance firefighter safety. He delves into PFAS, its uses, and impacts, shedding light on misconceptions and how they are incorporated in firefighter gear. The conversation also touches upon best practices for gear maintenance and exposure reduction. The episode underscores the importance of continued research and education in improving firefighter health and safety.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:11 Guest Introduction: Brian Norman

00:50 Brian's Background and Expertise

02:38 The Importance of Ongoing Research in Firefighter Gear

04:18 Challenges and Advances in Firefighter PPE

08:45 Cancer Awareness and Firefighter Health

11:07 Understanding PFAS: Facts and Myths

12:13 The Complexity of PFAS in Firefighter Gear

22:16 Research and Studies on PFAS Exposure

34:43 Mitigation Strategies and Best Practices

38:51 Conclusion and Contact Information

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Transcript

Welcome to All Clear Firefighter Health and Wellness. I'm Travis. Got a good friend of ours with us today. Brian Norman, how you doing today, Brian?  

Pretty good. Thank you for having me here. 

Ah, no, it's a pleasure. Now for those of you that are long time all clear listeners, Brian was our very first episode. 

He gave a lecture about PFAS and if you have not listened to that. You need to go back. It, it's terrible in the sound quality, great lecture, terrible sound quality, but we have grown since then. But Brian, for those folks that don't know you, who are you? What you doing? And please explain why you are wearing an NC State University T-shirt, which I highly approve of. 

Thank you Travis. Yeah I'm Brian Orman. I'm a associate professor here at the NC State Wilson College of Textiles. I have been did my undergrad PhD postdoc, basically a lifer at this point here in the college. And I'm jointly appointed in what we call our Textile Protection and Comfort Center, which is a nonprofit center within the college where we focus.

For the past 30 years, the focus has been on. Protective clothing and equipment so PPE, looking at the trade-offs, looking at what do you have to give up on one side, say comfort to get some protection, and looking at that across all types of threats. Historically looking at thermal flash fire, things like that, versus thermal burden, heat stress. 

But also, now as we start to see this issue of cancer in the fire service we switched and really started looking at that other prong, the exposure piece and how do we balance all of that. And like I said we've been a center for just about 30 years, a little over 30 years now. And been looking at not just firefighter gear, but also military protective cook equipment for soldiers, but also performance apparel, athletic apparel, stuff like that.

'cause it really gets to that whole idea of. Putting clothing, putting protective clothing, whatever it is on somebody and how it changes your ability to do your job or the performance that you're trying to get.  

Yeah. And a lot of that, a lot of that is very important and it is gonna take a minute to unpack, I think the per the profoundness of what you just said, and I do mean that sincerely, but, gear is something that makes a firefighter able to do their job. 

Honestly, absolutely. It makes almost superheroes to a certain level, be able to resist temperature and different threats that we couldn't normally handle. But when you talk about dealing with new advances and comfort and gear and things like that, what do you think is some of the most, important reasons to have ongoing research in this. Why not just stop now? Because we can get in about as hot as you want to go and we can do about anything Now, why is it important to keep studying?  

Yeah, I think everything's it's always changing, not just the gear the standards that govern it, but also the environment that you're going in.

There, there's a ton of studies that have been done videos that are out there from other groups that have looked at, what did a structure fire look like, in the 1970s or eighties, how fast did that spread versus, and what temperatures did it get to versus, the structures of today, the open concepts, the synthetic materials, all that kind of stuff.

And you have fractions of the time even as a, as an individual to get out. But then as a firefighter going in. What are the other things that you're experiencing those other the much more exposure potentially to different chemicals, things coming off those plastics, the foams, the other types of things that are burning.

And so I think what we always are always trying to optimize and I think really where we get is this idea that we have to give you, as a firefighter, whatever type of firefighter you are, we have to look at what you need. The, whether are you structural, are you. Strictly wildland or wildland urban interface, with the wildfires out in west, out west right now.

There's certain things that we still haven't, we still haven't optimized for them. One of those being respiratory protection. Respiratory protection, wildland firefighters, they have none. And it's a difficult situation because it know there's all different types of factors where you can't just do like you would as a structural firefighter.

So I think a lot of what's happened is. We went from, the, was the three quarter inch boots and the long coats and things like that, and said, okay, let's go to the turnout, the bunker gear. And then you start looking and say, okay, now we've impacted the heat stress. We have firefighters dying from cardiac events and heat strokes and things like that.

And the thought is, okay, let's come up with new materials, things that are more breathable, and you put those in and then you're constantly going back and forth with this balance. Trying to incorporate all the information that, all groups that are in this area that we're working on.

And like I said before, you get to the idea of, okay, now we have an issue with cancer. How do we do deal with that? Like how do we lessen that? And how do we do it with PPE? It's not just the thermal threats and the flash fire and things like that you have to worry about.

It's all these other things as well. And whether it's coming from, the gear, the manufacturing of the gear the fires that you go to the chemicals that get on there from going to multiple fires and all that kind of stuff. There's just so many different things that I don't think as a fire service we looked at previously until, say the past decade we really started paying attention.

Smoke is pretty bad to breathe in. I've had a wildland firefighter symposium last year and talking about the respiratory protection and there's a. A guy presented before me and he was like, oh, it's wildfire smoke. It's organic. I was like that's not how that works.

And so I think that's the thing is we start to look and realize. There's so much more that we can do to ensure that firefighters have what they need and when they need it. But then also that we don't go over that, we don't, overprotect or over-engineer a solution just so you can go, another five feet in the building or something like that.

We, we also have to look and see that balance between the performance of the gear and how you use it as well, and how should you use it. And so  a lot of it comes back to expectations of what we think that gear should do. And how do we balance that with the performance we're asked to put into it as well as the comfort.

And it's you think about gear and a lot of times I come across this, and even with everything happening, with the gear today, and people are like, oh it's just a textile, it's just fabric. Just change it out. And I keep coming back to the idea that, the turnout gear is one of, probably one of the most highly engineered pieces of just protective equipment.

When you take a look at all the layers that are there the intention that went into so many of the different things that are there the combinations that, of the composite, all these different things, and.  It's not an easy replacement if you want to just switch out and move something, move on.

It's not, it's not like a pair of socks. We hear that all the time with the college textiles here. Oh, it's just fabric. But it's very similar to say, a astronaut suit or something like that. The space suit's highly engineered, these things are very similar because as you said you get to the place where.

You do feel like a superhero sometimes. You can go into those burning d you can withstand that heat. And in this case, now we also look at hazmat suits and things like that. The chemical exposures, the vapors, the particulates. And it can protect you from those.

But at what cost is the thing. And so we have to always go back and say, we can always make this better. It's never gonna be perfect. And we just continue working and. As, we always, any good scientist will always say, more research is needed. Keeps us moving. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's it's a complicated balance and we are never completed with it.

One, one 

of the reasons that I have been  fascinated, first of all, and also interested in the work that you guys have been doing there, NC State. We're in our eighth year here at the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance, which is a nonprofit that's backing up our podcast.  And from then we had a mission.

Our mission was we need to teach people there's a problem and then how to actively address the problem. And I think you've been around the whole time we've done that, and you've given us insight and input and things as we've developed our best practices and things like that. We've put out. 

One of the things that I've come to learn, January is National Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month,  and a lot of people may wonder why hasn't a cancer organization said something during their month?  Yeah. I think we're at a point now where we can declare a certain level of victory in the battle against cancer.

Now, a lot of people go look at me like I'm crazy when I say that.  But a lot of it goes back to if you.  Excuse me. Allergies are killing me. If you ask anybody now in the fire service about cancer, they're go, oh yeah, we know it.  And you don't need to beat people with numbers anymore. You don't need to scare people because they know it's a reality.

So we've accomplished that part of our mission. But the part of the mission we haven't accomplished is exactly what you're talking about and working on making the gear better, figuring out how to clean the gear. Figure out what's the best way to make it work and not endanger the firefighters.

That, that's the biggest thing right there is the reality that sometimes we push ourselves beyond where we really should. And if it's not for you guys making sure that it can handle the temp or the exposure, then you know it's gonna, it's gonna be bad. But, I think a lot of the things we see going on out, out West particular now with the fires in California, outside of LA  a lot of light is being shed on  health conditions of firefighters across the board. And it's not just cancer, it's cardiac and respiratory. It's the whole thing. And I know that we are now getting a light kinda shined in the corner of where we're at right now. 

One of the things that if you've been in the fire service for more than 10 minutes, you have heard the term PFAS or P-F-A-S-P-F-A-S. I'm not gonna try to say what the scientific term is. I know you know what it is, and I'll butcher it  With PFAS, there is so much good information and there is so much terrible information that goes out. 

I know people have talked about I'm gonna sue my department 'cause they're making me wear a garment that gives me cancer. It's not necessarily true. So I figure while we have got an expert on PFAS here in the room,  why don't you tell us the abridged version of what is PFAS and what do we really need to be worried about?

Yeah, I can, I can give that a shot.  Is a topic that I've been immersed in for the past, I'd say 7, 8, 8 years now. And probably even more than that before I even knew it. Um, from the standpoint of PFAS just exactly like you said, there's a lot of information out there.

And there's a lot of good intentioned information. And I think that's. Where we're at now  is really trying to educate. We, you see these, state by state they're coming up with PFAS regulations and bans and protective clothing and other products mainly, but also now moving to protective clothing.

And one of the things that I've tried to get across to fire chiefs firefighters, fire service organizations and other researchers as well as manufacturers when I've talked to them, is. If you take nothing else away from this, understand that this topic, this issue is very complicated. It is one of the hardest topics I've ever had to deal with, just in terms of trying to understand every piece and perspective of it.

And I think far too often it gets oversimplified. And that doesn't really help either. Like I said, you'll see things in social media or mainstream media,  politicians, legislation, things like that, that come out. And there's a lot of things where, I can read it and I can look at it and that's not exactly true or that, that's not the whole story behind it.

And I think that's where we try to come in. It's to ask those questions. So in a short period here, the, so PFAS, the per and polyflor al substances there. That 

stuff, 

yeah. That's one of the things to understand is that is a class of well over 15,000 compounds. They, and it's probably even more, really much more than that because there's so many different iterations that, and not even ones that are made specifically for products or manufacturing but there's some that are made and then they can break down and turn into other things and.

There's all of these that were made, and they're all synthetic, they're all manmade chemicals that were made in the early, started to be made in the early 1940s or so when they were looking for I believe they were working on new refrigerants, right? And so had a tank of a fluorinated gas.

It had pressure on one day they came in the next day, there was no pressure there. So they cut the cylinder open and realized that, oh, we have a powder here. And they basically saw what we know today as PTFE or the trade name of Teflon.  And from there they, the, I think you have to think about why these chemicals were used.

I see all the time in stories and things like that. But, PFAS were found in gear or, forever chemicals found in firefighter gear, whatever. They weren't found there. They were put there purposefully. And I think that's something we have to realize is they were put there to achieve a level of performance.

You have to understand why they are there. And so one of the main reasons that these are here is because they are or that have been used is because they are repellents. You also hear that they are used for water repellency. That's true, but it's only about half true. The reason that the fluorinated chemistry is used because it is one like the best water repellent, but it's also an oil repellent.

And so anything that repels oil also repels water, but not the other way around. And it's easy, to start with, to say, okay, clearly firefighters need water recon. So you're dealing with water,  whether it's from the scene, from the fire hose, things like that. And, we've all probably touched something, a hot substance or a hot pot on the stove or something like that with a wet rag before.

And that water conducts heat really quickly. And so one of the reasons that you wanna keep water out is to reduce that heat transfer possibility. And so we're not getting burns. But the other thing you think about from the other side is why would you need oil repellency? Typically as a firefighter you may see car accidents.

Auto body shop fires, restaurant fires, and so those have hydrocarbon fuels. They have gasoline, diesel, fuel, hydraulic fluid. Cooking oils, things like that. And as soon as you remove the PFAS from the finish, that level of repellency for those chemicals, those hydrocarbons that are flammable are no longer, it's no longer in the fabrics from day one. 

I know we, we have a lot of times where, firefighters report, over lifetime of the gear, it may start absorbing those things. It may start absorbing water as well,  just because the surface is breaking down. So just the durability of it may not be always there. But this is from day one.

And so when we switch, we know just from a chemistry standpoint, the repellency of those are not gonna be there. And so that's one of the questions we've been asking with our federally funded work.  Through FEMA's assistance of Firefighter Grants program, which by far one of the most influential grant programs.

And if you ever get a chance to put in a good word or anything like that, if anybody does with Congress, it was actually reauthorized last year, but they had thought about cutting it.  And so we wouldn't have half the, a fraction of the work that we have, if not for the a FG grants.

And so we're really always try to bring that up. But, through that work, we're trying to ask those questions of what happens when we change these finishes? And so that's just one component. You have the outer shell finishes, and like I said we changed those. And right now if you're, if people listening didn't know most of the firefighter fabric manufacturers switched somewhere around 2021 to 2022 no longer including PFAS in the outer shell finishes. 

And so if you have gear that was made at least in 2022, possibly 2021, it doesn't have A-P-F-A-S finish on it remaining that as soon as you get it, it's not gonna have any oil repellency pretty much whatsoever. And that's a change. That's a change we have to acknowledge and train people on because you, you may not think about, going out and, okay, I got a splash of diesel fuel, may not thought about it before.

Now that diesel fuel has soaked into the gear and potentially into multiple layers of the gear. And so what we're doing is we're doing those splash tests in the lab and then taking it to what we call vertical flame testing. Or we also have access to a flash fire cylinder that we've done testing. And there's significant changes in what you may be experiencing.

Those things, anytime a fuel is soaked into that fabric.  It's fuel that can, it's gonna burn. So even though the fabrics aren't necessarily burning, the fuel is burning off of it and it's actually spreading out across the surface. And so we've been looking at this to see, what do we do with this, right?

Because most firefighters, if you get a new set of gear, this is how it's gonna perform at the very beginning. But you could also ask the question of how many departments or how many firefighters that have gotten new gear in the past three years were told of this. I think that's one of the things is we're trying to get the information out because firefighters, what you do on a daily basis is risk assessment.

And you can't do risk assessment if you don't know these things are gonna be different. And so I think that's one of the biggest pieces that we've been pushing trying to get the information out to say, listen, any, we can continue transitioning to non PFAS gear. And just on that note, real quick.

Anytime you, anytime anybody hears the term PAS free I've tried to clarify this, even in n fpa A meetings and things like that, PFAS free is at best a marketing term. We can always detect it. And so it's a misnomer, like the free is we can always measure it if we look close enough because this stuff is used and has been used everywhere.

And so if you look up the. Really what we're at, what we're getting at is the idea of not intentionally added. So PFAS, garments, firefighter gear made with from the manufacturer manufactured without intentionally adding PFAS. And that's because we're not using it to achieve some level of performance.

And what it really should be called non PAS, non-intentional added, PFAS, that kind of thing. But PAS free, don't believe, if someone says it's that, it's likely you're gonna detect something. There's always a lower level that we can detect down to. Because it's everywhere. Diet, diet 

syndrome, basically.

Yeah. I mean it's, this stuff, when, when we talk about the issues of PAS, first of all, no one should argue the health impacts of it. These chemicals specific ones in particular, I think PFOA, which is one of the ones we know the most about because it was used most was named last year, I think last year or the year before, as a known human carcinogen.

PFOS, which we typically attribute with foams. But not always is a I think it was possible either probable or possible carcinogen. They just didn't have as much information to, to conclude on that one. And those are mainly off of what we call, if I remember correctly, mechanistic data. So it's showing that it's not necessarily epidemiological studies and things like that, but it's showing indications that this, these can cause cancers and things.

And so, those. Were used in everything that you can possibly imagine anytime, any place that, that some manufacturer from any type of product needed some sort of repellency to water or oils or soils, fingerprints, things like that. These types of finishes were used. So you think of, upholstery, you think of carpeting, you think sandwich wrappers, pizza boxes dental floss.

It's used in that you have, all kinds of packaging and all these different things. Cosmetics, touching the skin, right on the skin. These are all things that have had these chemicals in there for whatever reason, and many of them what we would what we should call a non-essential use.

Something that has no reason for health, safety, functioning of society, any of those things. And so those which are by far used more often than anything. Even going to construction materials. We think of plumbers tape, Teflon tape. You think electronics, semiconductors, this, these thing, and this is why I try to make sure people realize that, PFAS is not a fire service problem.

It's a global problem. And we have severely contaminated the earth. It's hard to find anywhere that doesn't have it. And so that's one of the hard pieces and that's why we can detect it everywhere because it is everywhere, and I think.  When, like you mentioned early on, we start talking about the gear and the information that you hear and things like that. 

We're trying to break it down further and say, okay we know, risk assessment, risk is a product of two things. It's a product of hazard and exposure. And so we know these chemicals can be there. We know the hazards that they can face. They can can cause or that they have.

But we also have to ask the question of exposure.  And so that's another piece that we've been doing partnering with  Dr. Heather Stapleton at Duke University. We have partnered with them but mainly going back to the University of Arizona. So there's the National Firefighter Cancer Cohort Study,  and Heather and Dr.

Stapleton and I were talking and we realized that North Carolina wasn't really, represented well much, they're trying to, they're trying to recruit over 10,000 firefighters. Follow for a career, so 30 years or so and check blood levels and things to try to understand where cancer's coming from.

And this is beyond just the PFAS topic. And she really spearheaded getting this funding from the state to start the North Carolina version of this. So we're actively recruiting a thousand firefighters in the state 

and two, and I think we have, two of us are already doing it. We did it up in Raleigh and whoa, I got balloons. 

But we it's celebrating. Then two of us did it up in Raleigh. And yeah, it's a lot of blood and a lot of urine that you have to give, but it's for good purpose. 

Absolutely. And I think the thing that people really need to know is that, if you wanna know what your PAS levels are, as a firefighter that could be, two, $300 to get tested.

We're doing it for you and giving the results. Yep. For free just to be included in the study and the idea of following up every two years. Because we have to look and see, it's one thing, like I said, to have the stuff in the gear, but we also have to understand this piece that sort of has been bypassed and what is the exposure.

I was talking with someone at the fire Department Safety Officers Association conference last week in Tampa and I mentioned and we were just talking about, what is the exposure? And I told him, I said, to my knowledge currently there is no study, no data that tells us.

How much PFAS you may be exposed to by just putting your gear on and wearing your gear. That, that information doesn't exist. We know how much is on the fabrics. We know how much can come off the fabrics, but we don't know just because it's there, just because it could come off, we don't know how much gets in the body.

Yep. 

And that's another piece that this tries to help with because we're looking at firefighters in different populations, but then also comparing back if we can to the people that live there.  To, to the people that are not firefighters. Because when you're trying to understand exposure, especially the PFAS,  one of the issues with it is most people's exposure is environmental.

And that, that you can absolutely trace that back to, use of products, manufacturing, and they can get into the environment that way, but they've been in the air, the water, the soil. And if all those are contaminated you're getting food sources contaminated in these. I think more than anything, than more than just that these have been used in so many places and that they're synthetic. 

Because they're synthetic. There's not very good, let's say, degradation pathways for 'em in the environment or the body. And so what happens is they just build up, they buy the accumulates, what we call it in through the food chain, and so they just stay in the body for a really long period of time.

And that makes it difficult. So there, there are, excuse me, there are national studies that are done every couple of years that look at PAS levels in the general population across the country. And so a lot of times people compare back to those, and that's a good start. But we also have to compare back to say, the people that live around those firefighters that are drinking the same water, breathing the same air to understand is it the job, is it the gear, or is it just because you live in a contaminated area that these levels may be high?

Yep.  And I think that's a another thing that people for people to realize is that it's we know just from the national studies that about 97 to 99% of the population have PFAS detectable in their body just from everything that we're around on a daily basis. And so I.  Trying to tease out whether the firefighter actually has a higher exposure or not, is not always the easiest thing to do.

But we're trying to, and that's where this research comes in is, and why we don't stop at, like you said before Hey, we got the gear, it's good. Now we have to look and say, okay, let's continue to build that knowledge up. And, because that's the research is the reason that, in 2022,  the International Association for research on Cancer, I a. 

Was able to elevate firefighting as a, as an occupation, as a known carcinogen. It was because the research that had been done by so many people to show these linkages, to show that, the job itself, and even, I've talked to my, my post doc Ash Kusei, who was also on the podcast with you as a firefighter here in, in wake County, and, I talked to him, I remember the exact day when they made that designation.

And I told him, I said, I really wish they had, I really wish what, instead of saying that firefighting is occupation is a carcinogen, I really wish what they would've concluded is that the way that firefighting has been done for a hundred plus years is carcinogenic. But it doesn't have to be.

Because now we have the opportunity to say how do we separate those two terms? How do we, it's one thing, there's a lot of work going on where people are detecting cancer earlier. They're.  Finding different ways of treating it, all these different types of things to help.

And I just remember sitting in a conference one time and we were talking about all this great work that people were doing in that area. And it just occurred to me all of that was after you're exposed. Yep. And so nobody was talking about how do we turn off the exposure? How do we turn the faucet off?

And, I think about it, I completely, this whole PFAS topic the other exposures that the firefighters face, I go from. Thinking about it, from a personal perspective, I've never been a firefighter. I can't imagine doing a job and I'm always considered myself so lucky to be able to work with an incredible group community.

But cancer hits all of us. And my family included, I, I know that feeling of when a family member comes to you and calls you, my, my mother did and told me she had a type of leukemia. And I was getting on a flight, going to a meeting up in Toronto at the time, and you wanna talk about the longest loneliest flight of my life.

We didn't know anything else. And so I've always tried to maintain, hold onto that in terms of why we're doing what we're doing. Because it is emotional. It is a topic that deserves as much respect as possible. And, so when we get back to this whole PFAS thing, obviously you could tell, I could talk about this for hours but it's.

It is complicated and we're trying to get it right. And trying to understand how do we give you the protection, the performance that you need in the gear, not just from the finishes, but we, we could hold another conversation on the moisture barriers that are being replaced now and what does that mean for breathability?

What does that mean for durability of the gear? There's a lot of questions out there that we're not necessarily sure what the answers are. And so I do think it's important that, I've told, fire chiefs and things like that when I met with them. I think it's important for us on this topic specifically to acknowledge what we know, but we also have to be very clear on what we don't know right now.

And where do we go with that? And so like I said, from that standpoint there's a lot more that can be said. And, it's difficult. It is. And it's okay. It's okay that it's complicated 'cause we're working through it. But we have to acknowledge those things because ignoring that the gear is gonna be different, that the gear currently is different.

It doesn't help either. And like I said, it, it really comes down to  being educated us. It's all us to educate firefighters, fire service leaders so they can educate everybody when the gear comes in. It's also up to us to educate the manufacturers. That's a whole nother thing that, that we, I sit in a very weird place.

I met the College of Textiles. We work just as closely with the firefighters as we do sometimes the manufacturers. And, bringing those two sides to the table to how do we move forward? How do we move to a place where, we're balancing those risks, not exposing new things you don't have to be exposed to.

But then also giving you the performance so that you can.  You can go into that building or whatever it is that you need to do to save people and not have to think twice about what you're wearing, 

one of the things you probably know about firefighters sometimes is  simplify it. Make it straight.

So I've listened to you multiple times when you've given these lectures and these talks,  and what I've taken away from it is, number one, know your gear. What you, what do you have? How do you clean it? How do you take care of it? The second thing is.  Our gear is not giving us cancer alone. It's a wide variety of factors from the Gore-Tex you've worn when you went hunting to what's in the groundwater where you live, that you've drank and done for years.

It's a very complicated thing and it's  very narrow-minded. If we say pfas, my ear gave me cancer. We have to broaden out from there and if nobody takes anything away from this podcast today. What  Dr. Orman just said is gold. That is what will make you last longer at your career than anything else.

And doc, when you talk about all the gear,  questions, information, this information that comes up, this is a conversation that I've participated in many times. A lot of departments are like, don't wear your gear if you're going on a medical call. Don't wear your gear until you have to. 

Is training in your gear necessarily a bad thing, putting on your turnout gear, going, throwing ladders, whatever the case, is that necessarily a bad thing? 

I think it's it depends. I think part of it is you have to train for what you're gonna do. And from the standpoint of even, when we talk about, and I didn't mention too much, but when we talk about the moisture barriers and switching to those, like we, we do expect to see an issue or a decrease in breathability.

Yep. That's why the PTFE based moisture barriers were typically used because they are, they do have a higher level of breathability and so it helps to relieve some of that heat stress.  And so I think you have to train in gear in certain instances. Yep. I think being able, when you're doing the actual. 

Structure, firefighting training, things like that, you need to know how that gear feels because you also need to know what the symptoms of things like heat stress are. There's been many reports, and we're talking with a group this week where, they're doing a heat stress study with firefighters and asked them, you doing okay?

He's yeah, I just have a headache a bit. And they're like you have your core temperature's like 103. You need to sit down. And so being able to recognize those symptoms, you can't, you don't want, you don't want in the emergency situation for that to be the first time you pay attention to those things.

And so from that standpoint,  I think it, it does help to make sure you're clear on and kind. Acclimated what you expect for the gear to do. Now, on the other side of it, I don't think you need to run a marathon in the gear or, doing, exercises and things like that necessarily.

And I don't think it has much, to me anyway, it's not necessarily focused on PFAS. I think from the standpoint of when you come out of a burning building, your deer is covered in carcinogens and we know that. Yep. We know that everything, the smoke, the soot, all of that stuff that's coming off, those burning plastics and the foams and.

Insulation and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It is. And it, that stuff is just covered. It's covered on the surface. And so that's why we do look at this, the, as you mentioned, the decon on scene. We look at washing the gear off, gassing it for that matter. Certain things are gonna come off even before you get back to the station.

And even at the conference we were at recently, we were talking about decon, talking about other things like that and the gear. And it was a firefighter that asked how do we, how do we get this implemented? How do we implement this in our department? And not face pushback.

And, there's obviously, there's a lot of tradition, there's a lot of uphill battles in many departments to implement some of these things. And, as they were talking about it, back and forth I just kept thinking like, one of the things to remember is you don't have to be perfect.

It's, you don't have to be a hundred percent. Yep.  It's, if you do something a wet Deon on scene, maybe it's 20% effective, maybe it reduces 20% of what's on your gear. And then you get back and you do the wash, you do a shower, that's another percent here and there. And it's all about the sum of the parts.

And if you don't do it today, it's not the end of the world. You do it again tomorrow, and it's this whole thing where it's not all or nothing because even, even when you look at, as you mentioned early on, the, firefighters that'll be like, oh we know the issue of cancer. 

And there's a lot of, say more experienced older firefighters that may say I, I've already it's inevitable too late. I can't do anything too late. Yeah. But it's not there, there are absolutely things and I, if you ever get a chance to talk with Dr.

Jeff Burgess at University of Arizona, who is, by far more qualified to talk about the specific cancer things than I am, but I remember talking with him about this and he was like, no, there's. There are things that you can do even after you're exposed to something, after you have these things that can turn back the clock a little bit, right?

And so every one of those things can help. And so it, it's this idea of just, like I said, the sum of the parts. You don't have to be perfect. Just do as much as you can and it's gonna reduce it's mitigation, not elimination. I like that. And so I think that more than anything, 'cause I think a lot of people get and this goes, anything, if you're doing a diet, you're doing whatever it is and you're looking at it, you're like, oh, I messed up.

I'm done. I can't keep this up. And it's showing up every day and mitigating as much as you can. Wherever you can get back up and so Yeah. Yeah. You just continue showing up. Yeah. And so I think that's the thing is, even if you are having, difficulties in  implementing things, you just be the example.

And I think it's getting, from, and again, I'm not a firefighter but what I what I see, what I hear, going to conferences, talking, going to stations and talking to firefighters is. It's getting a little bit easier. Yeah. Like you said the message is getting out there.

The newer recruits are paying attention. And so yeah, I think, back to your original question I think it's all goes into that it's, you don't wanna be in your gear if you don't really have to, but there's a place for it. There's a place and a time. And there's even talk about or questions in the standards and research committees and, is structural firefighting gear, should it be designed specifically and only for structural response?

That's great for some departments, you're not always gonna be able to buy that tech rescue garment or one of these other garments to wear forever things. Every department, Ross, 

have a whole closet full. 

And so it's not always feasible for every department because you don't all have the same, backing, the same financial  backing you, things like that, to be able to go out and do that.

And that again, it's not a one size fits all solution. And so I think you, you take the hands you're dealt and you try to do the best you can with it. And if on scene Deon's the best that you can do, then you do that. Yep. And if you got two sets of gear, great, keep one wash the other.

There's all these things that you can do and you can always continue to, hopefully to abdicate for more better, better gear, better equipment, better, resources and things like that. But. It, everything can help. Every little piece that you do can help.

And yeah. And that goes, the proactive doing things, cleaning, decon, but also the other side of that, which is what you're not doing. And yeah. Don't, don't exercise in your gear. You don't really need to do that. The cardiovascular benefit's gonna be there if you're exercising either way, but training in your gear to make sure you know how it feels, knows it, know it, like you said, know in your gear.

Know your limitations. Yeah. Know where it's gonna go, where you shouldn't go with it. All those things are important. And so yeah, I think it's it's got its place, got its time. But again, a lot of this is, how do we reduce exposures as much as we can and every little piece helps.

Yeah, 

for sure. Dr. Orman, thank you for taking time to enlighten us on PFAS and gear and everything else. And I know this is not the last time you'll be on here or any of your colleagues, Arash. All always welcome. But if folks wanna learn more about what you're doing at NC State and the textile labs and everything, where can they learn about you guys? 

Yeah, absolutely. We have I actually have an answer to this now. We we finally got our website up. So if you just search Ormond Research Group. Should come up. And we have all of our published papers on there. We have interviews, podcasts like this that you can listen into that we've done.

And it's a, we're trying to keep it updated. So I got my students are working on it and they've done an incredible job of getting things there. Our contact information's there and, okay. If you, if anyone ever, you, if you need a, if you long need a longer discussion on PFAS or whatever it is, you know that topic is, it's not going away and.

We're gonna continue working on it until every firefighter understands the situation as, as thoroughly as we can. And but we're I'm happy to jump on a call, send an email, whatever it is. Talk to departments, fire marshals, chiefs, whatever it is, we're here to help.

And we're happy to do that. And. And, lucky to do that. I cannot say enough how incredible it is, how awesome it is to be able to work with the fire service. As as an outsider that came into this with no, no fire background whatsoever. It's really amazing to just be taken in and be able to work with these incredible men and women that put their lives on the line every single day.

And so we I appreciate it greatly and. Like I said, so happy 

to be able to work with all of you. We'll definitely have information about how to contact you down in our show notes. And like I say, thank you again for all the information and we will be up in Raleigh later this year.

I'm sure we'll get a chance to talk. And like I say, I always learn stuff when I talk to you and it's just wonderful to have folks like you watching out for people in our industry. Yeah. Thank Dr. Orman. Thank you.  As we always say here, own all clear, ignite and light your fire within.