The National Interagency Fire Center on April 12 announced the recall of 68,000 previously manufactured new-generation fire shelters for a retrofit to strengthen a corner of the shelters.

The recall applies only to the newest design by the U.S. Forest Service's Missoula Technology and Development Center. In the meantime, firefighters are instructed to carry the earlier design.

About 19,000 of the new shelters had been issued to state, federal and contract firefighters.

The recall followed an alert submitted to the agencies' Safenet program in mid-March describing a tear that occurred during deployment practice, according to NIFC. The Safenet program is an anonymous reporting system firefighters can use to alert managers to observed unsafe practices.

According to the Safenet, the tear was in the floor material near the shake handles used to quickly deploy the shelter. Equipment specialists at the Missoula Technology and Development Center confirmed that some shelters were tearing near the shake handles during deployment. All the tears were in the floor material, with the floor coming away from the seam connecting the floor to the side of the shelter.

“MTDC equipment specialists, in consultation with an outside engineering expert, believe the added risk associated with the potential tearing of the shelter is very small because the location of the weakness is in the floor,” said a statement from the NIFC. “However, interagency fire management leadership, specialists at MTDC and GSA are taking immediate action to fix the problem in order to ensure that firefighters are provided the best quality product.”

“No rips occurred during the extensive testing we did before the design went to the manufacturers. But we do acknowledge the issue and have developed a fix in the design to strengthen the area of the shake handles,” said fire shelter specialist Leslie Anderson of MTDC.

The design fix is being applied to all newly manufactured shelters, and the recalled shelters will be retrofitted with an improvement to the handle.

The 11 national fire caches are no longer distributing the new-generation fire shelter until the retrofit has been completed, or newly manufactured shelters with the design fix are received.

State and federal firefighters were instructed to return the newer shelters to the nearest federal cache.

NIFC acknowledged some firefighters may be unable to obtain an older-style shelter immediately due to the limited number, but said the newly manufactured shelters and the retrofitted shelters were expected to be widely available within two months.

NIFC said 3,000 to 5,000 retrofits should proceed per month, and 5,000 newly manufactured shelters per month are expected to be produced.

The International Association of Fire Fighters said the recall was the result of a hard-fought battle it waged for firefighter safety.

“This victory has been 20 years in the making for the IAFF and [California Department of Forestry] firefighters,” said IAFF General President Harold A. Schaitberger. “The safety of our brothers and sisters depends on the effectiveness of these emergency shelters. While this recall keeps firefighters safe for now, an industry-wide standard needs to be developed to ensure that this doesn't happen again.”

Fire shelters are required equipment for wildland firefighters, but are considered a tool of last resort in situations where firefighters are facing entrapment by oncoming flames. NIFC said that they should not be needed if “situational awareness, risk management and discipline are employed to make the right decisions in strategy and tactics on wildland fires.”