r/Wildfire • u/One-Initiative-8902 Wildland FF2 • 1d ago
Wildland Firefighter Mask lawsuit
Is there talk about a lawsuit over smoke masks?
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u/One-Initiative-8902 Wildland FF2 14h ago edited 14h ago
Wear Hot Shield HS-2 Wildland Firefighter Face Mask with N95 inserts. Works out well. It's not exactly this one. It's very similar mine. Have like clips so if I get too hot Or wanna get high off of Carboxyhemoglobin than I can just unclip one side and it just dangles could be a good option.
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u/NoSuddenMoves 1d ago
Ya'll really want to burn out and cut line in respirators?
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u/RadioFreeCascadia 1d ago
I want to not die of cancer a few years after retiring when there are tools we can use to mitigate or eliminate the risk.
Structure guys bitched and moaned when first told they needed to wear SCBAs because it would make it harder to work but they adapted bc the alternative is burying your buddies early.
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u/Different_Ad_931 1d ago
Yeah but they are only going in for 45mins at a time and not walking miles over the course of an assignment. If they don’t end up making it a permanent. Have to have it everywhere you go thing then maybe. But otherwise it’s going to make the job harder than it is already or needs to be at all.
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u/RadioFreeCascadia 1d ago
I mean, personal experience I’ve rarely had to hike for long hours in the smoke but I have had to hold/mop up/monitor in heavy smoke where a respirator (especially a PAPR design like DHS prototyped) wouldn’t be horrible.
End of the day we have plenty of PPE we’re ordered to carry that most of us rarely use (gloves) or hope to never use (fire shelter). Mandating a respirator be part of PPE just means they actually make the prototypes into production models rather than it being something we have to spend hundreds of our own dollars on inferior systems to try to not get cancer/live to see our kids grow up.
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u/ZonaDesertRat 1d ago
You can get a mask now, if that is your concern. Let me know after a season of wearing it how you feel...
My mask stays in my truck for all but the work on six felons or happy camp.
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u/RadioFreeCascadia 1d ago
I cannot buy the PAPR designs that actually allow us to work in the environments we do because they’re not marketable without a buyer.
A unpowered half mask is a shitty stand in and you know it. Not to mention getting yelled at for wearing it by ignorant overhead who assume you’re just risking heat exhaustion or inability to communicate for no good reason because they’ve got their head up their ass on how dangerous the smoke we’re eating is.
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u/Least_State_7923 10h ago
I’m convinced you are a prevention tech that does ground support once a season. You comment on nearly every post and you obviously don’t spend much time on the line if you can just talk shit all day on each post on this sub.
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u/ZonaDesertRat 9h ago
I'm convinced you have your head up your ass. So there's that...
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u/Least_State_7923 9h ago
Sure champ. See you cleaning the blue rooms after I goon
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u/ZonaDesertRat 9h ago
Over your mother like the bagger you present yourself as, sad cause he can't make a resume that can get a job in fuels.... A real high bar you have for yourself.
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u/Ok-Device-9847 8h ago
I’ve literally heard horror stories about working for you. Several of my crewmembers (a couple women) have told me that you made some pretty bad comments toward them back in 2020 and 21
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u/SientoQueMerezcoMas 1d ago
Holding, mop-up in some circumstances.
If we could get some sweet sci-fi lightweight tech, absolutely. The more brutal truth is that the agencies haven’t chosen to pursue this in a meaningful fashion because they have no financial incentive to do so.
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u/hiking_mike98 1d ago
What masks? There’s no mask or respirator that’s NIOSH approved for use in wildland. N95s are paper…you want paper strapped to your face and catching sparks?
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u/AZPolicyGuy Down with the soyness 1d ago
This is not entirely true.
NIOSH has approved respirators that they recommend for wildland firefighting use. Their literature notes that their recommendations do not line up with NFPA 1984 standards, since they do not filter out gases like CO2, but the NIOSH certified respirators meet 95% of the NFPA standards.
DHS put out a market report of NIOSH certified products suitable for wildland firefighters. Some, like the Sundstrom masks, are made of silicon and include spark arrestors. It's my understanding that some European agencies issue Sundstroms for wildland fire use, and they comply with their local standards.
I think the NFPA standard is frankly ridiculous. There is zero way we ever carry oxygen which is, AFAIK, the only way to meet the CO2 standard. NFPA needs to adapt their standards to allow us some protection from this shit that is killing us, and we need training on overcoming the SA and production problems that might come with their use.
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u/Hard_Rock_Hallelujah WFM Nerd 1d ago
I mean, the video does make it sound like there's at least talks occurring about gathering information to see if there is a legal basis for a lawsuit.
I'd be fine wearing certain wildland-specific respirators during certain activities like holding/monitoring, but I have a feeling if this goes through it'll lead to yet another knee-jerk USFS reaction and they'll mandate cheap and shitty respirators with high levels of breath restriction to be worn at all times, even when cutting line and burning out.