UKC

Morning all,

A slightly random question for any firemen/firewomen who might hang out round here, please.

In terms of breathing apparatus I assume the aims are isolation from fumes and adequate supply of oxygen, so do the cylinders contain air, oxygen enriched air, or some other mix? Are there situations that need you to use supplemental oxygen?

I'll do some more digging but if anyone can point me in the right direction I'd be grateful I'm keen to know what % oxygen a firefighter would usually be breathing whilst in SCBA. As far as I can see from digging about so far it seems 21% most of the time even on a closed circuit system.

Many thanks in advance

b

In reply to ben b: Oxygen enrichment would be rather dangerous in a fire situation. What if a hose blew as does sometimes happen? It is compressed air that they breath so percentage is that of air.

HTH

In reply to obi-wan nick b:

That's what I thought - going on to a fire strapped to a tank of highly oxidising gas strapped to your back can't be good. But in closed circuit SCBAs once the CO2 is scrubbed out then it must need to be replaced with some O2, or you end up on a hypoxic mix...

b

In reply to ben b: As far as I am aware most Fire Services use open circuit. Mine Rescue and BTP may use re-breathers. When we looked at them they are very much more expensive so we stuck to Open circuit. Should say I'm not a fire fighter we do chemical incident response.

In reply to obi-wan nick b:

Thanks. I'm not sure of the prevalence of closed SCBA work/training but assume it to be a minor player (or a major player for very few people). At least around here anyway.

Cheers

b

In reply to ben b:
Normal compressed air. But appx. 0.5 p.s.i positive pressure.