{"id":17612,"date":"2021-10-28T12:21:56","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T16:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/?p=17612"},"modified":"2024-04-01T13:45:51","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T17:45:51","slug":"women-supporting-women-in-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/textiles.ncsu.edu\/news\/2021\/10\/women-supporting-women-in-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Supporting Women (In Fire)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

By Sarah Stone<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becoming a firefighter means exposure to life-threatening risks, from heat stress to cancer-causing particulates, burns and falling debris. It means committing to pressure-filled shifts spent putting out fires, investigating scenes and saving lives. For women, it means doing all of this dangerous and stress-inducing work using uncomfortable equipment that doesn\u2019t fit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports that the number of women firefighters continues to increase. According to the most recent NFPA study<\/a>, 9% of firefighters in the U.S. are women. However, the equipment vital to doing these women\u2019s jobs hasn\u2019t grown with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re basically wearing station wear that isn\u2019t fit for their bodies. They are wearing male suits. To close the gap, some manufacturers cobbled together a female fit, but that was just essentially just shortening the length of their pants and sleeves,\u201d Research Assistant Professor Cassandra Kwon<\/a> says. \u201cFemales are inherently built differently from their male counterparts, and many of those differences in form are not accounted for in the current designs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Cassandra
Research Assistant Professor Cassandra Kwon<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Kwon, who works at Zeis Textiles Extension<\/a>, says she first noticed the potential for disparity through discussions with then Ph.D. student Meredith McQuerry<\/a>. The women were each conducting their own research for the Textile Protection and Comfort Center (TPACC)<\/a> about firefighting equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we’re talking, we\u2019re realizing that a lot of what we were developing was based on the male form only,\u201d she remembers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This inspired McQuerry, who is now an associate professor at Florida State University, and Kwon to combine their resources and expertise with the ultimate objective of creating a turnout suit for female firefighters. Think of a turnout suit as a firefighter\u2019s first line of defense. It\u2019s the actual protective suit and outermost layer worn by a firefighter, but it can look very different depending on the type of fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kwon says the initial steps towards making this happen will be to demonstrate the need to manufacturers and determine what changes need to be made to existing suits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Women
Cassandra Kwon (center) and graduate students at the Women in Fire International Conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During the Women in Fire International Conference<\/a> in October, the research group made big strides towards these goals. Kwon, McQuerry and four students attended the event, which invites female firefighters from across the nation to participate. The six researchers collected body scans of nearly 130 firefighters. They also interviewed nearly 40 women during anonymous focus groups. All but two of the women interviewed said they had problems with their suits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focus groups revealed that these ill-fitting suits cause more than just a nagging discomfort. Kwon says when given the opportunity to reflect, many firefighters realized their turnout suits had impacted how they performed their most basic duties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey changed their approach. Most everybody said that they had issues with their pants and how the crotch length from the pants is so long that they can\u2019t lift their leg, so they have to pull their pants up every time they go into a rig or up a ladder,\u201d she explains. \u201cSame thing with the neck collar on their jackets. A lot of times, it’s so tall that women have a hard time bending their head or looking back. Or it comes up too high, rubs and actually causes chafing, so a lot of them were like, \u2018Yeah, I wear my hood over it, so it sort of protects my chin.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kwon and McQuerry are reaching out to fire departments in North Carolina and Florida to schedule more surveys and body scans before they prepare their findings for manufacturers and standards committees. Kwon says a number of manufacturers and organizations have already told her they want to help properly equip all <\/i>firefighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that everybody\u2019s been interested in,\u201d she says. \u201cEverybody\u2019s been asking us, \u2018When is this going to publish?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n

By Sarah Stone<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Becoming a firefighter means exposure to life-threatening risks, from heat stress to cancer-causing particulates, burns and falling debris. It means committing to pressure-filled shifts spent putting out fires, investigating scenes and saving lives. For women, it means doing all of this dangerous and stress-inducing work using uncomfortable equipment that doesn\u2019t fit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports that the number of women firefighters continues to increase. According to the most recent NFPA study<\/a>, 9% of firefighters in the U.S. are women. However, the equipment vital to doing these women\u2019s jobs hasn\u2019t grown with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re basically wearing station wear that isn\u2019t fit for their bodies. They are wearing male suits. To close the gap, some manufacturers cobbled together a female fit, but that was just essentially just shortening the length of their pants and sleeves,\u201d Research Assistant Professor Cassandra Kwon<\/a> says. \u201cFemales are inherently built differently from their male counterparts, and many of those differences in form are not accounted for in the current designs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cassandra
Research Assistant Professor Cassandra Kwon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kwon, who works at Zeis Textiles Extension<\/a>, says she first noticed the potential for disparity through discussions with then Ph.D. student Meredith McQuerry<\/a>. The women were each conducting their own research for the Textile Protection and Comfort Center (TPACC)<\/a> about firefighting equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we're talking, we\u2019re realizing that a lot of what we were developing was based on the male form only,\u201d she remembers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This inspired McQuerry, who is now an associate professor at Florida State University, and Kwon to combine their resources and expertise with the ultimate objective of creating a turnout suit for female firefighters. Think of a turnout suit as a firefighter\u2019s first line of defense. It\u2019s the actual protective suit and outermost layer worn by a firefighter, but it can look very different depending on the type of fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kwon says the initial steps towards making this happen will be to demonstrate the need to manufacturers and determine what changes need to be made to existing suits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Women
Cassandra Kwon (center) and graduate students at the Women in Fire International Conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During the Women in Fire International Conference<\/a> in October, the research group made big strides towards these goals. Kwon, McQuerry and four students attended the event, which invites female firefighters from across the nation to participate. The six researchers collected body scans of nearly 130 firefighters. They also interviewed nearly 40 women during anonymous focus groups. All but two of the women interviewed said they had problems with their suits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focus groups revealed that these ill-fitting suits cause more than just a nagging discomfort. Kwon says when given the opportunity to reflect, many firefighters realized their turnout suits had impacted how they performed their most basic duties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey changed their approach. Most everybody said that they had issues with their pants and how the crotch length from the pants is so long that they can\u2019t lift their leg, so they have to pull their pants up every time they go into a rig or up a ladder,\u201d she explains. \u201cSame thing with the neck collar on their jackets. A lot of times, it's so tall that women have a hard time bending their head or looking back. Or it comes up too high, rubs and actually causes chafing, so a lot of them were like, \u2018Yeah, I wear my hood over it, so it sort of protects my chin.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kwon and McQuerry are reaching out to fire departments in North Carolina and Florida to schedule more surveys and body scans before they prepare their findings for manufacturers and standards committees. Kwon says a number of manufacturers and organizations have already told her they want to help properly equip all <\/i>firefighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that everybody\u2019s been interested in,\u201d she says. \u201cEverybody\u2019s been asking us, \u2018When is this going to publish?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most female firefighters wear male suits that are ill-fitting or uncomfortable, but Research Assistant Professor Cassandra Kwon is on a mission to rectify that. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":27796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"caption\":\"A graduate student collects measurement data from a firefighter.\",\"displayCategoryID\":2135}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[742,490,512],"tags":[2491,1704,2492,698,1108,682,2493,898,663],"class_list":["post-17612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswire","category-our-people","category-research-and-innovation","tag-dr-cassandra-kwon","tag-dr-meredith-mcquerry","tag-firefighter-safety","tag-firefighters","tag-textile-protection-and-comfort-center","tag-tpacc","tag-women-in-fire-international-conference","tag-zeis-textiles-extension","tag-zte"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"Women Supporting Women (In Fire) - 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