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Gear meets mark once thought beyond reach

Local firm's firefighter suit protects from multiple hazards

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Nick Curtis, Lion Apparel's vice president for global product development, looks at the Dayton-based company's CB-Xit firefighter protection ensemble, which will soon be available to fire departments across the country. CB-Xit is the first firefighter gear to meet updated standards for protection against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.

Jim Witmer/Staff Nick Curtis, Lion Apparel's vice president for global product development, looks at the Dayton-based company's CB-Xit firefighter protection ensemble, which will soon be available to fire departments across the country. CB-Xit is the first firefighter gear to meet updated standards for protection against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.

Lion Apparel develops fire ensemble that protects against chemical, biological and nuclear dangers

By Kyle Nagel, Staff Writer Updated 10:48 PM Friday, July 10, 2009

The National Fire Protection Association established a standard on clothing to protect against chemical and biological attacks in the 1970s.

Through the years, as technology and science have progressed, so has the standard, which settled into a difficult incarnation in 2006. That update sent three makers of firefighter protective equipment into a race to produce the first gear to meet that standard.

“We told them the scope of the request was beyond the scope of modern reality,” said Nick Curtis, vice president for global product development at Dayton-based Lion Apparel.

Three years later, Lion, which produces protective clothing used by emergency responders throughout the world, has created the first structural firefighter ensemble to gain certification as providing the appropriate protection.

The ensemble allows a firefighter to deploy for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear protection with an emphasis on getting out of situations that include such threats. (Hence, the ensemble’s name, CB-Xit).

The process, because it took years and faced even more updated NFPA standards, signals the increasing importance of protecting first responders against such attacks.

Simply put, the ensemble Lion created is a protective shell inside a regular-looking firefighter outfit with gloves, boots, a hood and breathing apparatus attached. The trick was keeping the same flexibility for firefighters in doing their regular work while keeping out potentially toxic or dangerous particles.

“Firefighter protective clothing is not a summer swimsuit,” said Bruce Teele, senior emergency services safety specialist for the NFPA. “This is rugged stuff.”

To meet the standard, a test subject wearing the ensemble underwent a strenuous workout mimicking firefighter activities while sample particles were pumped into a test chamber. When the test was finished, the inside of the suit had to be 360 times cleaner than the outside.

“Sweat and vapor needed to be able to get out,” Curtis said, “while the bad stuff can’t come in.”

Firefighters, though, aren’t meant to be the primary responders to such attacks.

Denny Bristow, coordinator for the Dayton Regional HAZMAT Response Team, said firefighters should arrive on the scene of a possibly dangerous situation prepared to perform their regular duties and help themselves and others escape. The HAZMAT team, with better equipment, would then identify or classify the substances involved.

Before Lion’s creation, Bristow said, firefighters didn’t have protection to escape such situations.

“The way firefighters are dressed today, with present turnout gear, there is a likelihood we would have fatalities with firefighters in an attack like this,” Bristow said. “Firefighters aren’t going to sit back and do nothing, that’s their nature. They want to help people, and this will help them do that.”

With greater protection comes greater cost. The Lion CB-Xit carries a $3,000 price tag, about double that of suits commonly used by fire departments.

Curtis said he encourages fire departments to gauge their likelihood in facing an attack before committing to such a cost.

Officials said such precautions and innovations are necessary.

“We have to be prepared either way in our emergency services,” the NFPA’s Teele said.

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