As the release date of a new NFPA standard approaches, we NFPA standards committee members are filled with a moment-of-truth type of trepidation. We look back and take stock of what we did or didn't accomplish. We search for the right words to define where we stand today and plant some mental seeds for where we want to go in the future. But it's all about moving forward and embracing the changes affecting our industry. And it's not always easy, cheap or popular.

Today's fire service is driven to improve every aspect of the industry as quickly as possible. We want to react so quickly to every actual and potential firefighter injury or death to save the remainder of the corps from the same fate that it puts tremendous pressure on NFPA committees to maximize their efforts during each five-year revision cycle. Just think what has occurred since the last NFPA 1971, Protective Ensembles for Structural Fire Fighting, was published in 2000. There were the events of Sept. 11, 2001. The danger of pandemic flu looms ever larger. We prepare our incident command and local/regional emergency operations centers to deal with WMD events. The National Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System Web site delivers “in your face” accounts of the real-world hazards that can kill or seriously injure firefighters. And since 9/11 more than 500 brothers and sisters have been lost to myriad incidents while on duty.

It's a scary world out there, and many of you expect your protective clothing and equipment to save you from it — or at least give you a fighting chance to escape.

Such has been the climate for the NFPA 1971 committee charged with revising the standard. It should not take a lot of imagination to envision the discussions that took place after 9/11. We asked ourselves, “How can we protect our firefighters from the next event?” The challenge was to figure out what the next “event” might be and what weapon might be chosen. We were literally looking at how to protect the first line of defense for most of the nation.

The economics of the issues weren't lost on us. We realized most departments couldn't afford to purchase, much less find the space to carry, five different types of ensembles to deal with five different types of incidents. Think about it. The average firefighter responds to structural fires, wildland-urban interface fires, hazmat calls, emergency medical calls, technical-rescue calls and a host of miscellaneous incidents. And what are we wearing for a majority of these calls? The workhorse NFPA 1971 structural firefighting ensembles. This leads me to the first of the changes to NFPA 1971, 2007 edition.