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Wearing Flame Resistant Clothing Properly

How you choose to wear secondary flame resistant clothing to keep you as safe as possible in the workplace is something that is not always thought of as usually the main concern is that a person has the correct ppe on.
This is a question that may not have been given much thought but here are some reasons and solutions as to why this is so important.

When selecting FR clothing you should choose garments that fit slightly loose so that they create a layer of air insulation between the outer layer and a person’s undergarments and yes air does have insulating factors. At the same time the FR clothing should not be too loose so that it could cause injury by getting caught in moving equipment.
The undergarments should always be made of 100% natural fiber as synthetics can melt and cause severe burning if a person is exposed to a flash fire or related heat source.

FRC clothing should always not be contaminated with flammable soils such as oil and grease as these substances can ignite when introduced to an ignition source.
Garments must be worn with the outer layer such as a shirt or coverall being buttoned, zipped, or snapped as high as possible and the sleeves must never be rolled up and shirt tails should always be tucked in. A good way to justify this is that the chances of surviving a thermal event is greatly determined by the percentage of body burn and your age. Just remember that the more of your body that is covered by FRC, the greater the chance of survival.

Lastly the outer most layer of protective clothing must be flame resistant as some companies allow their employees to wear non FR outerwear or rain wear thinking that they are protected by an FR base layer. However your FRC will not provide the protection you need in a thermal event if the outer jacket or rain wear burns or melts.

Terry Smeader
Safety Protection Warehouse
Ph 888-440-4668
www.coverallsale.ca


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Terry Smeader

Owner at Safety Protection Warehouse
Distributor of Nomex, Flame Resistant Safety Clothing and Arc Flash Protection.

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  2. Layering FR Garments 101
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  4. Common Misconceptions about Flame Resistant FR Clothing

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This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2019 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Brand Performance, In The Field, Purchasing/Procurement, Regulations, Safety Managers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Wearing Flame Resistant Clothing Properly”

  1. Luke Smith Says:
    September 19th, 2019 at 11:02 am

    I didn’t know that you should choose slightly loose clothes as flame-resistant attire to give way for air. I would assume that firemen would want to wear a lightweight type of clothing so that they could move accessibly. In this case, I will suggest for fire stations to provide safety gear and wear to the firemen as well as request to teach them on why and how they need to wear this kind of clothing.

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