A breakdown of the new standard and how it impacts everything from maintenance and care to manufacturing standards.

NFPA 1950: Core Updates

The NFPA rolls out updates every five years to keep the standards around your protective gear current and relevant to your reality. This ensures that your gear will always work for you, protecting you so you can protect others. At Fire-Dex, we understand that you need to be informed, but we also recognize that you don’t always have time to tackle the technical before duty calls. So, here’s a breakdown of the new NFPA 1950 standard.

In a Nutshell

NFPA 1950 consolidates and updates three standards: 1951 (Technical Rescue), 1999 (EMS), and 1977 (Wildland). It introduces key changes across technical rescue, EMS, and wildland/Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) PPE, including stricter testing, more detailed requirements, new gear classifications, expanded labeling for tracking and compliance, and simplified or optional requirements where it makes sense. 

The Breakdown:

Additional Category: Multifunctional Ensembles

NFPA 1950 includes a new category of PPE, defined as multifunctional ensembles. While some departments already have a second set of garments for non-structural calls, this update has its own labeling and certification requirements that define proper use for these ensembles. NFPA 1950 also allows for optional non-barrier features to be integrated into this new category of gear, making the testing process much simpler and giving you greater flexibility to meet the needs of your crew across a wider range of response types.

New Standards for Technical Rescue PPE

NFPA 1951 largely focuses on strong protection against rugged environmental hazards, flash fire exposure, and functionality. With that in mind, the new NFPA 1950 standard also emphasizes the same functionality, mobility, and performance of technical rescue PPE, while shifting the focus to more practical solutions for certification consolidation. Meaning less financial and logistical strain on the manufacturers to get multiple certifications per garment, and a more unified approach for you, the department, to understand as you navigate your PPE purchases. This update reflects real-world experience and updated research, including changes to:

• Enhance thermal protection testing using manikins with sensors to simulate real-world flash fire exposure

• Allowing barrier garment protections to be optional as needed

• Simplify helmet requirements to support a more universal design 

• Update to boot testing standards, allowing the use of alternative materials like synthetic leather uppers

Changes for EMS Gear

The NFPA 1999 standard serves as a guide for individual EMS clothing requirements and focuses on bloodborne pathogens and infectious liquids.  It functions much like a “pick-and-choose-style” standard, allowing each department to choose and apply requirements one-by-one, or as needed for individual departmental risks.

NFPA 1950 has now consolidated EMS clothing specifications, grouping similar PPE together in categories, which replaces and simplifies the previous piece-by-piece approach. NFPA 1950 also broadened its focus to include airborne illnesses and diseases such as COVID-19. These updates include:

• Establishing garment categories

• Rethinking Thermal Load (THL) requirements

• Reclassifying eye and face protection

• Differentiating between disposable and reusable products

• Allowing optional non-barrier gear for non-hazardous patient care, transport, and low-risk environments 

These updates are mostly meant to make NFPA 1999-compliant gear more accessible to both the fire service and other EMS providers.

Changes to Wildland and WUI PPE

NFPA 1977 focuses mainly on protection from heat and flames while maintaining mobility and taking measures to prevent heat stress. Though NFPA 1977 was updated only recently, the NFPA 1950 consolidation presented the opportunity to fully resolve some technical questions left from the previous update. 

NFPA 1950 also introduces updated design requirements such as:

• More detailed sizing requirements for upper torsos, including specifications for female fit

• Requires a minimum of five options for glove sizes

• Particulate-blocking garments have new performance requirement adjustments

• New collar height requirement of 3 inches 

What This Means For You

NFPA 1950 brings everything together. By consolidating key standards and aligning them with real-world use, it helps ensure your gear is built, tested, and worn with today’s risks in mind. The result is simpler compliance, more flexible PPE choices, and gear that better supports how you actually work on the fireground.

At the end of the day, standards evolve for one reason: to keep you safer. Understanding what’s changed helps you make better decisions about the gear you rely on for every call.

Need help navigating NFPA 1950 or evaluating your current gear?

Watch Todd Herring, Vice President of Product Innovation and Strategy here at Fire-Dex, break down these updates in more detail in this FEMSA Focus webinar. You can also contact our team to request a quote today.