STATEMENT OF
DR. ARDEN L. BEMENT, JR.
DIRECTOR
NATIONAL
BEFORE THE
SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND TRANSPORTATION
“THE FIRE ACT: NEEDS
OF THE FIRE SERVICE”
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is Arden Bement. I am the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). I appreciate the opportunity to appear today. NIST supports the goals of S. 321 and understands the Department of Homeland Security is working with Committee staff concerning a number of comments.
NIST conducts
research that advances the nation's measurement and standards infrastructure
and works closely with national voluntary consensus standards organizations to
support the development of consensus standards.
These standards are needed by
Equipment for first responders is very specialized. It also constitutes a small market that is generally served by small manufacturers. Producing new equipment for the market in the absence of generally-accepted standards is a high-risk venture. In addition, standards that reflect in use conditions for determining the performance of firefighter equipment would assist industry in providing equipment that meets or exceeds firefighter needs.
The
In FY2001, FEMA established the Assistance to Firefighter’s Grant Program following passage of the Firefighter Investment and Response (FIRE) ACT that provides fire departments funding through grants for needed equipment. These funds are now allowing firefighters to be better equipped and prepared for fires and other emergencies. However, many new technologies are not yet supported by the existence of consensus standards. Individual fire departments are forced to assess the performance of these new technologies or rely solely on manufacturers information and demonstrations. Interoperability of equipment also suffers from lack of consensus standards.
To help address this issue, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between NIST and FEMA was signed in March 2002 and establishes a framework for NIST to serve as a standards and measurement science resource for the Department of Homeland Security’s FEMA in the areas of fire, disaster prevention, and homeland security. One of the purposes called out in the agreement is to aid the development of standards and methods to evaluate equipment for use by the Nation’s first responder and emergency management communities. Additionally, NIST will continue to work with other agencies and directorates of the Department of Homeland Security. In particular, the Under Secretary of Technology will soon formalize this cooperation with a memorandum of understanding between the Technology Administration and the Directorate of Science and Technology at the Department of Homeland Security.
In order to develop consensus standards for
new fire fighting technologies as described in S. 321, there is a need for
several interrelated activities.
First, priorities must
be established for the development of the standards. In cooperation with the U.S. Fire
Administration (USFA), NIST has hosted workshops with representatives of the
fire service, industry, and other laboratories to establish priorities for fire
service research. Published results of
these workshops have helped set the current research agenda for both NIST and
USFA. Similar workshops should be held
to establish priority and a timeline for the development of measurement
techniques, testing methodologies, and consensus standards.
Second, measurement
techniques and testing methodologies need to be developed for evaluating the
performance of firefighter equipment using new technologies. NIST is the nation’s primary measurement
laboratory. Our mission is to develop
measurements and standards to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and
improve the quality of life. NIST has
specialized laboratory facilities and staff expertise ideally suited for the
development of these techniques and methodologies for many of the new fire
fighting technologies.
Third, a network of private
sector laboratories and facilities are needed where the measurement techniques
and the methodologies can be used in a reproducible way, a necessary condition
for the success of any standard. NIST
will work with other organizations to assure that the measurement results are
reproducible.
Finally, NIST will work
closely with national voluntary consensus standards organizations to support
the development of the consensus standards.
An unbiased source of technical information and data, such as that
supplied by NIST, is critical to the success of this effort.
NIST is proud of its role as a science and technology resource in helping to improve the effectiveness and safety of fire fighting. Below is a brief description of its current and recent activities.
Portable thermal imagers are used by firefighters to enhance vision. They are used to identify hot spots in cool surroundings such as hidden fires in void space or over-heated fluorescent light ballasts lights. They are also used to identify cool objects, like victims of fire incapacitated by smoke or downed firefighters in hot surroundings during building search and rescue. Unfortunately, the performance of the sensors implemented in various products has not been measured under controlled conditions. Furthermore, the minimum level of important performance attributes, such as image contrast, have not been determined.
NIST, with added funding from USFA, is developing an apparatus to measure how well thermal imaging hardware is able to aid vision and hazard sensing under a variety of realistic conditions. These laboratory measurements will be compared to measurements made in actual building fires and in large-scale fire experiments at NIST. The results will be used to assure that laboratory measurements are reliable indicators of real-world performance. Standards built on this foundation will provide for accurate measurement of the important performance attributes of firefighter equipment essential for quality, reliability, safe, and effective use.
Another example of our work deals with firefighter protective clothing. The NFPA Standard on Protective Ensemble for Structural Fire Fighting (NFPA1971) specifies the minimum design, performance, certification requirements, and test methods for structural firefighter protective ensembles. The test method for measurement of thermal protective performance for firefighter protective garment and the minimum rating required for safety is part of this NFPA standard. The Thermal Protective Performance (TPP) rating is determined by exposing dry materials to a single high intensity exposure condition that is often related to an extreme fire condition called flashover. This standard has contributed substantially to improved safety for firefighters, but firefighters tell us they are being burned through their gear under lower intensity exposures.
During fire fighting, a firefighter’s protective clothing is wet from the outside by water spray and the inside by perspiration produced from strenuous activity. NIST, assisted by funding from USFA, is performing measurements under a range of thermal exposures and moisture conditions and has found that wet gear performs differently than dry gear with respect to burn injury protection. Manufacturers have come to NIST to utilize the NIST apparatus to understand more about the behavior of their products under conditions different from those assumed in the present standard. This data generated by manufacturers working at NIST will be used to improve protective clothing products. In addition, the testing approach used at NIST will be offered for consideration for adoption as part of the current standard. The apparatus is also being used in exploratory NIST research to evaluate the thermal protective attributes of new materials such as carbon nano-tube composite fabrics. These measurements can help in the development of future protective clothing that has even better resistance to burn injury with reduced weight.
NIST works hard to anticipate needs so that information is ready when needed by industry to advance their products and provide for interoperability. Four years ago, NIST formed a consortium with several fire alarm hardware manufacturers. The fire alarm panel in buildings, often found in the lobby near the main entrance, is the heart of the building’s fire information system. Condition measurements and alarms from fire detectors placed throughout a building are sent to this display. Until recently even the best displays offered only rows of lights that indicated the zones in the building where fire was detected. Often a key or map was needed to interpret the lights. In many cases, it was easier to look for the fire than to use the information from the panel display.
The development of more powerful and affordable computer and graphic displays have provided manufacturers with the opportunity to expand the display capabilities and the amount of information available at the panel using graphic icons. NIST created a standard set of icons for these panels and other fire command devices. In this way, firefighters would only have to learn the meaning of one set of symbols if they were applied on all fire service graphic displays. Last fall, working from documents submitted by NIST, the NFPA Technical Committee on Testing and Maintenance of Fire Alarm Systems adopted a set of standard icons for fire alarm system displays and published these in the 2002 Edition of National Fire Alarm Code (NFPA 72). NIST is now turning its attention to the standards that will be needed to advance the wireless transmission and display of information contained in the building emergency systems to responding firefighters even before they arrive at a building.
Interagency research managed by NIST is also helping to protect firefighters responding to terrorism incidents. Threat analyses and simulations have been conducted to examine chemical warfare agent hazard concentrations in a variety of domestic terrorist attack scenarios, both for respiratory and percutaneous (skin) threats. Results are being supplied to the NFPA committee revising the Standard on Protective Ensembles for Chemical/Biological Terrorism Incidents (NFPA 1994).
I am delighted that there is recognition by
the committee of the need for the development of firefighting equipment
standards. NIST is the nation’s primary
measurement laboratory and has always played a critical role in the development
of effective consensus standards in support of industry and public needs. I expect NIST to continue to contribute
substantially to improved safety and effectiveness of fire fighting in
Thank you and I would be happy to answer any
of your questions.