Structural firefighting PPE (e.g., helmets, coats, pants, boots and gloves) is designed to protect the firefighter from the thermal stresses associated with interior structural firefighting. The unprecedented wildfires that ravaged large areas in the Carolinas, Tennessee, New Jersey and other areas east of the Mississippi River last fall should serve as a wake-up call to structural fire departments on the need for wildland firefighting protective gear. But structural firefighters who respond to wildland fires to provide mutual aid, or who respond to fires in the wildland urban interface in their response district, may not be as informed and educated. Wildland firefighters have long known the value of having the proper protective clothing and gear to prevent injury and illness – particularly from heat stress – while engaged in fire suppression operations.
