Source: TFT, Sponsored Content
Every firefighter knows the smell inside a fire truck or at the station after a working fire. It’s harsh, it’s easily identifiable and, it turns out, it’s deadly for firefighters and first responders.
The burning of any combustible material releases a harmful concoction of smoke and soot filled with cancer causing chemicals that permeates turnout gear, apparatus cabs and the air you breathe. Eventually, that bad stuff makes it back to the station as well, creating toxic living environments, dramatically increasing the likelihood of firefighter illness or death.
Additionally, in recent years, we’ve all become familiar with the need to protect ourselves and our crews from viruses that pose significant health risks to all first responders.
The threats are real. According to statistics published by the Center for Disease Control and The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), between 2002-2019, two-thirds of the line-of-duty-deaths among firefighters were due to cancer. In 2020, one-third of first responder deaths were due to Covid-19. By any measure, those numbers are staggering and unacceptable.
The time has long passed to be proactive in protecting firefighters and first responders and Task Force Tips (TFT) can help you mitigate the health risks efficiently and effectively. In addition to their consultative approach – learning about your unique circumstance and goals – their products named CrewProtect and StationProtect use advanced technologies to filter the air your crews breathe within apparatus and at your station.
Jeff Hicks, OEM/Health Channel Manager for TFT, explains CrewProtect, which is an in-the-cab air filtration system for apparatus and StationProtect, a larger unit for use in emergency services buildings, drastically reduces airborne threats to firefighters and first responders.
“We decided to go after the three major threats that are in the fire service today and that would be particulates, off-gassing of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and viruses, including the CoV-2 which is the cause of COVID-19,” Hicks says, noting the system also provides mitigation of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
Task Force Tips is known the world over as a business that develops innovative water flow management and fire suppression equipment, including nozzles, monitors, ball intake valves and more. At the core of the company, since day one, has been making the world safer, healthier and more productive while helping first responders save lives and protect property. It’s a mission the founders of the company fully embraced decades ago. TFT’s parent company, Madison Industries, has expanded the mission.
One of the companies within the Madison Industries family is Purafil, the world leader in the engineering and manufacturing of air filtration media and equipment.
“We decided to utilize the expertise of our sister company to develop a solution to mitigate those three major threats to firefighters,” Hicks says, noting that Purafil’s technology is used in hospitals around the world to create clean rooms, is used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as well as the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, to protect priceless works of art.
“Our cab decontamination solution uses PuraShield technology from Purafil, which is a patented and proven technology that’s been around for a long time”, Hicks says, noting our system has a four-part filtration system that captures particulates down to nanoparticles, encapsulates them and kills viruses with a proprietary media.
Engineers from Task Force Tips and PuraShield worked together to develop the equipment for cabs of fire apparatus as well as fire stations.
“This is not off-the-shelf technology,” Hicks says. “We went through nine prototypes to come up with the current CrewProtect model.”
Hicks added, “The mission was clear from the start. TFT and Purafil wanted simple products that anyone could use. We wanted to create a product that was easy to use, robust and could go into the fire apparatus to handle everyday use in the fire service.”
When it comes to CrewProtect, the engineers developed a product that can be installed virtually anywhere in the cab of an apparatus with six bolts and two wires, positive and negative. The unit comes on automatically when the apparatus is turned on. The devices are easily installed in new apparatus with minimal tools and labor and can be retrofitted into existing apparatus with ease.
Maintenance is just as easy. The device requires changing the one filter every six months and a series of LED lights alerts you of the condition of the filter so you know when it needs to be changed. Your new filter cartridge is removed from its packaging and slipped into the heavy-gauge steel, powder-coated filtration unit mounted in the cab and the old filter is simply tossed in the trash. Nothing more is required of the user because the filter technology doesn’t simply capture the contaminants, it neutralizes them to a non-hazardous form. The most important part of the system is the filter, Hicks says TFT and Purafil are continuing collaboration creating filters that will provide you protection against the potential next threat whatever that may be. He adds that Chiefs like the idea they won’t need to purchase brand new equipment and technology and install it to provide protection if a new virus or hazard emerges. A simple reconfigured filter is all that will need to be replaced if ever a new threat rears its ugly head, Hicks says. This future-proofed approach is a major benefit.
While it is operating, the CrewProtect moves 100 cubic feet of air per minute (CFM), which means the air inside an average apparatus cab is completely filtered every 3.5 minutes. It’s also not affected by open cab windows as it traps and encapsulates particulates and viruses that are airborne, and the agitation of the wind current can help in the purification of the air.
Cleaning the air inside the cab of the apparatus is just part of the equation when keeping firefighters and first responders safe from the effects of the three airborne threats mentioned earlier. Task Force Tips recognizes the need to provide air filtration at the firehouse too and their teams have developed StationProtect for that very purpose.
Hicks says the StationProtect is necessarily much larger as they handle the large volumes of air inside buildings. The equipment uses standard AC power to operate the filtration system – a heavy-duty, industrial system weighing 230 pounds, not including the 80 pounds of filtration media inside.
StationProtect uses the same filtration technology as the CrewProtect equipment and the same ease of use. The StationProtect remains on all the time while it removes contaminants and harmful aerosols from air in the station 24 hours a day. The StationProtect is easy to install and service in your building just like the CrewProtect within your apparatus.
Hicks says fire departments can install the StationProtect devices in the hot and warm zones where the some of the largest risks of contamination exist. Units can be installed where your turnout gear is stored, and others in apparatus bay areas where they have the best chance of capturing particulates kicked up by opening and closing bay doors.
Another advantage of the technology in CrewProtect and StationProtect is the unit’s ability to capture and neutralize mold, a real benefit in older stations, Hicks says.
One of the hallmarks of the TFT air purification products is that neither the CrewProtect nor the StationProtect emit any byproducts. Hicks says, “One thing we didn’t want to do is replace one bad thing with another. That makes no sense. We needed to capture AND neutralize the contaminants without the potential to release harmful elements back into the air.”
And when it comes to competition, Hicks says TFT air purification systems are competitively priced with purifying systems from other manufacturers. “We believe we are right in the mix with everyone else,” Hicks says, noting the replacement filters are comparatively priced with other replaceable components using different technologies, such as lightbulbs and other filters.
Another advantage of TFT’s air purification equipment is the technology is not affected by ambient temperature as it works in brutally cold climates as well as desert hot temperatures. “The filter just doesn’t care,” Hicks says, noting that moisture, humidity and dampness are of no consequence to the effective operation of the CrewProtect and the StationProtect units.
Realizing that purifying air begins with the decontamination of gear to reduce the number of particulates and VOCs that can be released in confined spaces, Task Force Tips has additional tools in its line-up for you – the DECON/pak portable decontamination system. The DECON/pak is designed specifically for gross decontamination of firefighter personnel and equipment. The self-contained agent proportioning, and rinse system uses water and approved personnel protective clothing agents to remove as much of the contaminants from firefighters and first responders before they get back into apparatus after fighting a fire.
Hicks describes the concept as a cycle that removes the bulk of the contaminants at the scene, which can off gas for as long as 45 minutes, using the DECON/pak, then the CrewProtect purifies the air in the apparatus as firefighters return to the station where they are protected by the StationProtect purifier. The cycle continues when they get back into the apparatus to respond to the next call.
“TFT provides continuous mitigation,” Hicks says. “Talk to us. We have solutions and are most interested in helping you protect your crews given your unique circumstances.”
For more information, visit TFT’s CrewProtect and StationProtect web pages.
