The new NFPA 1950: Consolidating tech rescue, EMS and wildland PPE

Kari Greer via USFS/Website

Like NFPA 1970 that brought separate requirements for turnout gear, work apparel, SCBA and personal alert safety systems (PASS) into a single standard, the new NFPA 1950 consolidates multiple PPE standards from different technical committees into a new single standard. However, unlike NFPA 1970, NFPA 1950 combines standards from three entirely different sets of fire service missions and, in some cases, non-fire service missions: technical rescue for structural collapses, high-angle rescue, vehicle extrication, and responses to various natural disasters; EMS operations mainly involving emergency patient care and transport; and wildland firefighting, which is increasingly expanding to wildland/urban interface (WUI) firefighting.

These different missions can be part of any fire department responsibilities but also have collectively different constituent groups of end-users.

Each of these mission areas, while sometimes overlapping, has a wide variety of PPE items (see table below) that were covered in the three individual standards:

In this column, we detail the new NFPA 1950 standard that was issued in December 2024 and its possible impact on the fire service.

When NFPA 1951 was first created in 2001, the prevailing hazards guiding protection needs were the impact of a rugged physical environment combined with potential for exposures during a flash fire (ignition of a combustible environment within ensuing short duration fire exposure), bloodborne pathogens from engaging with disaster victims, contact with chemicals from broken containers, and the need to be visible in a relatively complex response setting. Consequently, many requirements from structural firefighting protective clothing and equipment were borrowed for the purpose of defining technical rescue products. Over the years, the requirements that applied to this ensemble – garments, helmets, gloves, footwear and goggles – have become increasingly pragmatic. The standard now focuses mainly on the physical protection requirements with lighter levels of thermal protection. The need for barrier protection against either liquid chemicals or infectious fluids is optional.

For the consolidation of the older NFPA 1951 requirements into the newer NFPA 1950, key changes include:

The 1999 standard for EMS operations protective clothing and equipment is more of a “menu” standard that sets individual requirements for different clothing configurations. Originally, this standard has focused solely on bloodborne pathogens and infectious liquids, but its new version also addresses exposure to airborne transmissible diseases. Typically, first responders rely on examination gloves, then some eye/face protection, and lastly some form of garments based on their perception of like exposure risks. For this reason, the standard establishes multiple categories for types of garments, gloves, eye and face protective devices, footwear, and specialized respirators. The standard further defines the integration of all these items into different full-body ensembles for more extreme exposures as may occur in a serious disease outbreak like Ebola or the release of a biological agent. Further, distinctions are made between what are considered single-use (disposable) and multiple-use (reusable) products. Many of the changes occurred due to lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Principal changes to the NFPA 1999 standard as part of the new NFPA 1950 will include:

Many of the above changes were made to identify specific equipment that is likely to be already commercially available based on more conventional healthcare product specifications. These changes are intended to make NFPA 1999-compliant clothing items more accessible to the fire service and other EMS providers.

While the standard on wildland protective clothing and equipment was updated just two years ago, the technical committee responsible for the standard had an opportunity based on the consolidation to address some topics that had not been completely resolved during the earlier revision.

Some of the key changes in this product group include:

One of the benefits of consolidating the three standards is the ability to create an entirely new category of protective products called multifunctional ensembles. Some fire departments already define utility for having a second set of garments that can address multiple missions as an alternative to using traditional, heavier structural turnout clothing for non-structural operations.

To date, several manufacturers have offered products that are certified to different combinations of standards, such as applying the NFPA 1951 technical rescue standard with optional blood-borne pathogen protection and the NFPA 1999 EMS standard to garments that have barriers, or applying the baseline NFPA 1951 technical rescue standard and NFPA 1977 wildland firefighting standard to garments that do not have barriers.

While garments with these multiple certifications provide a way of addressing combined hazards in one product, they are often expensive to certify because even when the same tests are called out, there are slight differences in the test parameters or criteria that require duplicate tests of prospective products and unnecessary costs.

In the new NFPA 1950 standard, this new category has its own certification and labeling requirements spanning garments, helmets, gloves, footwear and goggles. As noted above, this consolidation has already resulted in uniform helmet design and performance requirements separately applied to technical rescue, EMS and wildland firefighting.

In the new product category, references are made to other parts of the standards that are considered to be the most appropriate set of criteria for a multifunctional item, be it a garment, glove or footwear.

While the new multifunctional items are not a replacement for a given mission category of specific clothing or equipment, they will bear a label and certification listing that defines their use in multiple types of missions. It is expected that this new clothing category could become of interest to some departments that are weighing how frequently they use their turnout clothing.

NFPA 1950 specifies an 18-month grace period for which products meeting current editions of the NFPA 1951, NFPA 1999 and NFPA 1977 standards can be carried forward. Any new products produced after late December 2024 now have to meet the new 1950 standard.

Still, it is expected that new products created to meet the new NFPA 1950 standard may be delayed because the capacity for new product certification will be exceeded as structural firefighting protective clothing products are making their way through the certification process for complying with the new NFPA 1970 standard. This logjam in testing and certification will likely push the availability of products certified against the new standard toward the end of 2025.

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