Technical Development Opportunities in the Field of Respiratory Protection in Case of Fire Services

Abstract

Respiratory protection in the field of fire service and disaster management intervention is provided by similar technical solutions in Hungary and all over the world. If necessary (smoke, presence of toxic elements), the air at the various damage sites must always be kept separate from the fire-fighting forces. This is typically a compressed air system, a one-cylinder personal protective device carried by the firefighter to provide air independent of the incident environment.

The aim of this paper is to review the research results of recent years and to analyse the current public and private, national and international research in the available ways to see what possibilities, mainly technical, exist today to increase the capability and capacity of commonly used compressed air breathing apparatus. It will be investigated
what additional elements can be added to the complex breathing protection solutions already considered as a system for fire-fighting forces. In the article, the author describes the circumstances and the hazards on-scene, where interventions requiring respiratory protection are carried out. The currently available technical solutions for Hungarian and international fire brigades and the new respiratory protection designs that are not yet common but are available are reviewed. New development directions are outlined, in which areas and to what extent respiratory protection for the fire brigades’ deployed forces is possible in the coming years, and what are the limiting, multi faceted physical factors. Various international solutions are also presented, and the potential usefulness and possibilities for their adaptation at home are discussed.

The research method was primarily a literature search, analysing recent research results of national and international authors in the field of technical personal protective equipment for respiratory protection, the related mathematical and physical phenomena and the conclusions to be drawn from them. This is based on an analysis of relevant publications and guided consultations with experts in the field.