Decontamination and Cleaning For Firefighters – New Suite of Products
The cancer rates of firefighters are rising at a critical rate, so it’s only natural that you should keep yourself, your team, and department safe and healthy. The best way of protecting yourself and your team from harmful carcinogens is through decontamination procedures, these procedures eliminate any carcinogens that might be lying around on the gear, equipment, the station, and fire trucks.
The decontamination procedure is performed through the use of various special decontamination products and equipments.
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The harmful particles are easily taken care of the decontamination gear and products. Priority and care is given to the firefighters themselves as they are the ones who receive the largest amount of exposure on the fire scene.
As standard operating procedure, firefighters should always decontaminate their gear and themselves before they leave a fire scene to prevent any health issues as well as possible contamination of the environment. An example of the decontamination procedures that firefighters perform include getting rid of any harmful particles on their turnout gear, their PPE, and FR clothing; and any residue on their skin or dermal areas. Fire fighters are offered decontamination kits and decon kit refills to help them in decontaminating themselves and their gear on site. The decontamination kits usually contain decon gear and equipment and personal decontamination products such as turnout gear, FR clothing, and PPE cleaning products and sprays as well as decontamination wipes, decon field wipes and etc.
The average baby wipes one can buy from grocery stores and supermarket can do the job at basic cleaning and getting rid of dirt, soot, and surface grime but are ineffective at the removal of metals, regardless of how hard you wipe and scrub metals will stick on to the skin in a manner unlike germs and dirt so it’s very difficult to get rid of by any other means. The burning of certain materials release harmful chemicals that are invisible to the naked eye such as heavy metal oxides like hexavalent chromium which can be released from heating stainless steel, ceramics, anti-corrosion coatings, chrome and other industrial materials and another heavy metal oxide which is lead oxide which is released from burning household items, decorations, paint, carpets and etc. Companies such as Hygenall manufactures products such as soaps, surface cleaners and baby wipe like products that are designed to clean soot and as well as more than 99% all of those metal oxides as well as other metals such as mercury, nickel, copper, arsenic and etc.
You can see this website if you want to find out more about these decontamination products.