The Kirkland Fire Department donated dozens of air packs, cylinders and masks to the international nonprofit Firefighters Crossing Borders on April 15.
After some 13 years of service, 52 self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) packs, 108 air cylinders and 80 masks, to which Kirkland firefighters had entrusted life and limb, are being sent to Mexico to help under-equipped departments.
The SCBA packs consist of a mechanized pack which hooks up to a face mask and an air tank, providing firefighters fresh air to breath during fires and protects them from smoke inhalation.
Under USA regulations, the air cylinders must be replaced after 10 to 15 years of service, which Kirkland Fire Department Lieutenant Cory Caulk said means the cylinders likely have up to two more years of service.
“Air packs are like vehicles, they have an end of service life,” he said.
While the packs and masks themselves are in excellent shape, Caulk said at $1,000 for each carbon fiber air cylinder, replacing the cylinders would be a quarter of the cost of simply buying entirely new packs.
Consequently, the city purchased new packs which have been standardized regionally, allowing different departments to use each others equipment if they jointly respond to a fire or emergency.
Purchasing new packs outright is also cheaper in the long run than purchasing replacement parts piecemeal, Caulk said.
If properly maintained by the Mexican fire departments, Caulk said the packs and masks themselves could function for another 15 years, provided replacement air cylinders are acquired.
The organization handling the donation, Firefighters Crossing Borders, was founded in 2000 by Gig Harbor firefighter Joel Schwarz after he visited fire departments in Mexico while on vacation.
According to the organization’s website, he was struck by the lack of personal protective gear, such as fire resistant clothing and SCBA packs, and the poor condition of their equipment.
Firefighters Crossing Borders now works with fire departments across the USA and Canada to secure donated equipment to send to departments in the Mexican states of Baja, Sinaloa, Nayarit and Jalisco, among others.
The most common donation his organization receives are items which have a legally mandated end-of-life date, such as fire-resistant clothing and more rarely SCBA packs.
The packs being donated by Kirkland are especially valuable, Schwarz said, because the air cylinders still have a couple years of life.
“Firefighters know firefighters, and they know this equipment can continue its use,” he said.
Once Firefighters Crossing Borders receives the SCBA packs, they will test them before eventually shipping them to Mexico.
The importance of SCBA packs for firefighters is hard to overstate, Schwarz said. Many fire departments in the Mexican states they serve have only a handful of packs, meaning they are often unable to enter burning buildings to effectively fight fires.
SCBA packs, Caulk said, are the second most important tool a firefighter has after their mind.
“There is hardly anything that can be done at a fire without a SCBA,” Caulk said. “This is pretty much the pinnacle of safety equipment.”
The Kirkland Fire Department has donated equipment in the past, notably sending older packs to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina when they last replaced their SCBA systems in 2004.
The department also donated a used aid car to Sierra Leone to help fight the recent Ebola outbreak.
For more information on Firefighters Crossing Borders, visit their website at www.firefighterscrossingborders.org.
