Fire Shelter Talking Points

Where are we in the development of a new fire shelter? Three parallel efforts are taking place toward the development of a new fire shelter.

1. We did not have a dependable, repeatable, full-scale test of the shelter that would allow us to reliably compare new shelters with the current shelter or with other new shelters. We currently have contract with Mark Ackerman at the University of Alberta for developing the protocol for full-scale radiant and convective tests that can be performed in a lab. He will also develop protocol for small-scale tests for material screening and for testing strength and durability. Failure criteria will also be determined for all of these tests. These should be complete later this spring.
2. We also need a new toxicity test for new fire shelter designs. The toxicity test that is used for the current fire shelter is not adequate for new materials. We have a contract with SGS US Testing for the development of the new lab scale toxicity test. This should be complete later this spring.
3. As the performance tests above are being developed, we have been seeking new design and material options to test when the tests protocols are complete and the failure criteria have been established. We have been doing small scale testing of a variety of materials, and modeling the effect of shape on heat transfer. We also plan to test shelters provided by other developers. This is where Jim Roth's shelters come in. Our intention is to test all shelters that appear promising: our own; Jim Roth's; and others. Once the shelters are tested we plan to present all options that have met our criteria to decision makers.

The time frames for these three efforts are:

Performance tests (including toxicity tests): Complete by July 1
Testing of new designs. August - October
Presentation of potential new shelters: January 2002.

When will the field have a new fire shelter?
Contracting and manufacturing take well over a year. If a decision on a new shelter is made early in 2002, shelters could be available to the field by summer of 2003.

How does NFPA affect the availability of a new fire shelter?
The current National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standard for the fire shelter is included in the Standard on Wildland Firefighting Protective Clothing and Equipment, 1998 ed., (NFPA 1977). The current standard is a design standard that requires a shelter be built to the current Forest Service specification for the Fire Shelter (5100-320G, June, 1998). The next edition of NFPA 1977 is scheduled to be published in January, 2004. However, we will likely have a new shelter available for use before that time. The question has arisen as to whether we will have to wait for the new standard is published before we issue new fire shelters. We have a couple of options.

1. In some cases it is possible to do a Temporary Interim Amendment to change the standard in the current edition of NFPA 1977. The change we would propose may be too significant to handle through such an amendment, but it might work.
2. The other option is to supply firefighters with a shelter that does not have NFPA certification. We will have excellent documentation about the development of the performance tests and the performance of the selected shelter to defend our selection.