In the last few decades, turnouts have evolved from rubber coats to modern three-layer composites. Advances in materials and fit mean that gear performs at a higher level than it did previously.
But for the Fire-Dex product development team, that progress still isn't good enough.
Product developer Sean Bilovecky says the team had one simple question: "How can we make a new set of gear and do it in a way that there's a big jump forward?" The team wanted more than to just “put a few bells and whistles on it.”
The result was AeroFlex, the most breathable turnouts ever made and a huge leap forward in turnout design.
Bilovecky says that when the team began looking at the next evolution of turnouts, they began by asking how Personal Protective Equipment could be more, well, protective.
The data show that the two biggest causes of death for firefighters aren’t related to burns, but rather to cancer and overexertion.
The solution to decreasing cancer rates has often involved additional particulate blocking barriers, from options on turnouts to particulate blocking hoods. While important parts of protection, particulate blocking materials can greatly limit the breathability of gear.
Less breathability means that gear traps in hot air and prevents sweat from evaporating. If sweat can’t evaporate, it can’t cool down your body. That in turn can lead to serious problems caused by overexertion and heat stress: cardiac issues, mobility issues, cognitive issues, and more.
So Bilovecky and his team set out to solve the problem of turnout breathability while still providing protection against harmful fireground contaminants that can lead to cancer.
The key to better breathability began with better materials. New generations of turnout material options, especially the TECGEN71 outer shell material, are lightweight without sacrificing thermal protection.
But the team wanted to go even further, so they began looking into design features that could further supercharge the breathability of turnouts.
Ventilation has long been an option in the athletic market. Bilovecky’s background is in athletic apparel design, so the team began exploring how vents might work in turnout gear. The difficulty is that turnout gear has much stricter protection requirements, not to mention things like SCBAs that can cover up ventilation areas.
But after loads of testing and development, the team created a revolutionary new ventilation system designed for turnouts.
They paired those vents, which we call AeroVent Technology, with the lightest, most breathable composite available. Known as VaporLite Panels, these composites are powered by TECGEN71 and maximize how much air can be pushed out of the jacket and pants. Together, the AeroVent and VaporLite technologies work together to help turnout gear push out hot air but—crucially—keep flames and particulates out.
Bilovecky was well aware of the need to balance both: “One of the first questions we got when we told people there was going to be ventilation in their gear was, ‘well, if hot air is coming out, then hot air is going to come in. I'm gonna get burned, right?’”
But testing showed that there is a pressure differential in gear, meaning that more pressure inside the gear naturally makes air want to go out—not come back in. The design of the ventilation system forces air to move in one direction (a one-way street design), maximizing that differential and preventing hot air from entering. Particulate blocking material within the vent is then designed to provide protection against contaminants.
“All those things working together allows your body to push hot air through,” Bilovecky says, “but doesn't allow hot air to shoot back in. One of the cool things about this design is, the more you move, the cooler you get. So if you're just on a treadmill, you can feel a little bit of a benefit. But if you're hooking ceiling or you're crawling and moving, the more you sort of bellow your arms, you're encouraging the air to go through that system and take that hot, moist air that's in your core and get rid of it.”
The next step was to decide where to place the vents. Using body mapping, the team found that the body generates the most heat under the arms and in the crotch area. The vents and VaporLite Panels were placed in those regions to maximize how much hot air could be released.
The design of AeroFlex was a success, but it still had to perform in the real world. No turnout gear is useful unless it actually protects in a fire.
So we sent the gear out to two places: independent labs and real firefighters.
The independent labs confirmed that the design of AeroFlex works. Not only does it protect from the flames, it also drastically boosts turnout breathability and can decrease sweat rate and core temperature.
For Bilovecky, the independent testing was a fantastic first confirmation that AeroFlex was indeed a massive improvement in the world of turnouts. He says that the most significant thing he sees in the data is that AeroFlex provided additional minutes, not seconds, before a firefighter experienced severe heat stress.
He compares that to decisions made about thermal protection. Thermal protection is measured by TPP (Thermal Protective Performance), which when divided by two gives an approximation of how long gear will protect from burns during high heat situations. The minimum number set by NFPA for TPP is 35, so about 17.5 seconds of protection.
Bilovecky says many departments focus heavily on TPP, perhaps looking at a TPP of 35 versus 41. That means, says Bilovecky, “decisions are getting made based on just three or four seconds.”
With AeroFlex, the data show that gear can provide additional minutes of protection when it comes to heat stress protection, a potentially massive difference on the fireground.
Lab testing is only part of the equation. We also needed to hear from firefighters about how the gear performed day in, day out on the fireground.
Bilovecky says the first thing most people do is try to suck in heat, confident that they can get the vents to backfire. But so far, he says not a single person he’s talked with has managed it; the vents keep the heat out even if the wearer is trying to make them fail.
Then he says the first thing most firefighters notice isn’t necessarily the vents at all, but how well the gear fits. They talk about how the gear doesn’t restrict their movement and the only tightness they feel is from their SCBA strap.
For the pants, he says, “I based them off snowboard pants, so if you wanted to you could do a split.” He says he always hopes to see people do the splits but that only some firefighters take him up on the offer to try.
So the fit was great, but then, he says, the team started hearing stories like “I came out of the burn and usually I’m just flush in the face and red and can’t wait to get out of my gear. But I didn’t realize that I wasn’t trying to pull off my gear as fast until I started paying attention.”
He says he’s also heard stories of firefighters wearing heart monitors and their heart rates would be much lower than normal while wearing AeroFlex. “These are people who have done this repeatedly for years. They know what it feels like to be in a burn. So they would say, ‘I can feel this, it’s working.’”
Since then, even more firefighters have said that they love the mobility and breathability of the gear. They report that it moves better and leaves them feeling more energized after a burn.
Bilovecky and the Fire-Dex product development team set out to create the next generation of turnout gear.
Hundreds, thousands of hours of testing and development have led to AeroFlex. The pinnacle of Fire-Dex’s commitment to innovation, AeroFlex turnouts are more than just a minor upgrade. They’re an entirely new era of PPE, helping firefighters everywhere stay safer from the fireground’s biggest threats.