Wildland firefighters around the globe could soon benefit from NASA technology. Materials developed to withstand high temperatures in space could be used to create significantly improved fire-protection shelters and clothing.
Some of the newest heat-resistant materials being developed by the space agency are flexible, increasing the number of applications for which they may be used.
The Forest Service, managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is working with NASA's Langley Research Center to determine if suits could be created from the space-age materials.
Wildfires can burn at extremely high temperatures, presenting a real threat to firefighters battling the inferno. In June 2013, 19 firefighters with the Granite Mountain Hotshots lost their lives while attempting to quell a blazing wildfire in central Arizona. The emergency workers became trapped, and in a last-ditch effort to save their lives, they housed themselves in emergency fire shelters.
"I was watching the news after the loss of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, and I thought, just like I am sure other people did, what could have been done to save them. What if the firefighters had been cloaked in some of the spacecraft heat shield materials we had spent years developing?" Mary Beth Wusk, a researcher at Langley Research Center, said.
When Wusk and her colleagues first contacted the Forest Service, they found the group was already studying the fire shelter used in the Arizona fire in an effort to improve their manufacture. Current technology, like that used in the 2013 blaze, utilizes aluminized cloth to form a personal tent. These shelters provide some degree of protection from flame and embers and provides a limited storehouse of air. They have saved the lives of many firefighters, but they can be overcome by prolonged exposure to flame.
The Convective Heating for Improvement for Emergency Fire Shelters (Chiefs) was formed by researchers from NASA and the Forestry Service. The team tested more than 100 samples of various combinations of materials, both traditional and modern.
During the summer of 2015, the Chiefs team will test 12 shelters during three scheduled test burns in Edmonton, Canada. The tests will be conducted in cooperation with the University of Alberta.
Fire shelters currently in use weigh roughly 4.3 pounds, roughly the same as a gallon of milk. The Chiefs team wants to develop a personal shelter that weighs approximately the same as traditional designs but that performs better under emergency conditions. So far, they have developed one shelter with improved characteristics compared with traditional designs, but it is significantly heavier than traditional designs.
Soon, firefighters may see their lives saved by the same technology that allows spacecraft to race through the atmosphere intact.
