NIOSH Warns Firefighters of SCBA Facepiece Lens Failure, Urges Upgrades

In a safety and health advisory published in May (PDF), NIOSH warns firefighters that certain facepiece lenses on self-contained breathing apparatuses will degrade and fail more quickly than other components of their SCBA and personal protective equipment ensemble. When exposed to extreme heat and energy, SCBA facepiece lenses meeting the 2007 or earlier editions of the National Fire Protection Association’s 1981 standard on open-circuit SCBA for emergency services develop holes, bubbling, and other severe deformation leading to the equipment’s failure, NIOSH’s document explains. In 2012, an NFPA safety alert helped establish the lens radiant heat and elevated temperature heat and flame resistance tests, which NFPA added to its testing procedures to prevent additional failures of this kind. As a result, SCBA facepiece lenses meeting the 2013 or later editions of NFPA’s 1981 standard are manufactured with more heat- and flame-resistant materials and have greater integrity.

NIOSH urges fire departments to upgrade or replace SCBAs with those meeting 2013 or later editions of the NFPA standard and to report failure, near failure, or significant degradation of SCBA components both to the agency and the equipment manufacturer.

The safety and health advisory on thermal degradation and failure of facepiece lenses may be downloaded from NIOSH’s website.