Following a ProPublica article revealing that the U.S. Forest Service had for years issued clothes to wildland firefighters that it knew contained doubtlessly harmful “endlessly chemical substances,” the company has stopped distributing these clothes. It additionally says that it’s going to instruct its gear producers to keep away from utilizing PFAS sooner or later.
This month, ProPublica reported that till at the least 2023 one of many Forest Service’s suppliers, TenCate, used ending merchandise made with a PFAS compound on a Kevlar-blend pant cloth. In response to emails from the provider, the finishes had been used to repel gasoline and water. Regardless of understanding about the usage of PFAS, officers with the Forest Service had not beforehand knowledgeable wildland firefighters about it.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have lengthy been utilized in protecting gear to repel substances like fuels. However many municipal hearth departments have moved away from the chemical substances as researchers revealed extra about well being dangers related to them. Firefighters in a number of states have filed class-action lawsuits in opposition to producers alleging they had been harmed by PFAS within the gear they wore. Analysis particular to wildland firefighters has lagged, and wildland firefighting businesses have been slower to publicly tackle the problem.
On Feb. 11, at some point after ProPublica revealed its article, a Forest Service cache supervisor — an official who oversees a gear repository — wrote in an e mail that he requested colleagues to distribute broadly, “I obtained discover from the Washington Workplace Cache Administration employees late final night time that we’re to put a maintain on issuing” the pants. However the company didn’t instantly make clear additional. A wildland firefighter who spoke on the situation of anonymity to guard their employment mentioned final week that incident administration groups had been asking the company for recommendation concerning the pants. “As of proper now, our logistics of us haven’t gotten any steering in any respect from higher-ups,” the firefighter mentioned.
On Friday, the Forest Service issued an announcement to ProPublica: “PFAS in protecting gear is a fancy, industry-wide subject and any suggestion that the company has sought to obscure info doesn’t mirror the in depth work to develop testing and enhance long-term occupational well being protections for firefighters. Firefighter pants manufactured with PFAS water repellent cloth therapies have been faraway from out there inventory within the Nationwide Interagency Help Caches.”
TenCate has not responded to repeated inquiries, however in an e mail reviewed by ProPublica, it instructed the Forest Service {that a} PFAS-free end was out there in January 2023. On Friday, the Forest Service despatched an e mail to its employees saying that its provider had switched to a PFAS-free end that yr. In the identical e mail, the Forest Service wrote that anybody with the older pants “ought to discontinue use and change” them. The company additionally mentioned that it was updating its necessities “to specify that cloth therapies and materials is not going to include PFAS.”
Fireplace departments sometimes adhere to security requirements set by the Nationwide Fireplace Safety Affiliation, a nonprofit that gathers enter from knowledgeable committees together with firefighters and representatives from firms that offer them with gear. Whereas the affiliation isn’t a certifying physique, its requirements are utilized by authorities businesses together with the Forest Service. Final yr, an NFPA technical committee up to date its requirements for municipal firefighters to limit ranges of sure PFAS chemical substances in protecting gear. However the group has not but made a parallel replace to its customary for wildland firefighters.
Rick Swan, an NFPA committee member, mentioned the lag displays an extended and deliberative course of for growing requirements, however he added {that a} restriction on PFAS chemical substances in wildland gear is all however inevitable. “I feel it’s a no brainer,” Swan mentioned. In an e mail, a spokesperson for the NFPA wrote that the committee overseeing the wildland firefighting customary “will doubtless take into account this subject once more.”
Specialists can’t say for sure what dangers PFAS in gear pose to the well being of wildland firefighters and agree extra analysis is required. Jeff Burgess, a professor and researcher on the College of Arizona who’s main a sequence of long-term research of firefighter well being, mentioned smoke inhalation and the buildup of soot on gear are major methods wildland firefighters encounter carcinogens. Understanding of wildland firefighters’ exposures to PFAS has lagged behind understanding of publicity in municipal hearth departments. Traditionally, researchers have had much less entry to wildland crews, and lately they’ve centered on finding out dangers associated to smoke.
