Finance Committee - Minutes - 11/18/2020 - P8
Finance Committee - 11/18/2020 Page 8
Steve Buxton, Assistant Fire Chief
Good evening. It’s Steve Buxton, Assistant Chief, Nashua Fire. How are you?
Mayor Donchess
Steve Buxton, Assistant Chief, yes?
Steve Buxton, Assistant Fire Chief
This is basically a partial order for protective clothing. This is the structural fire fighting gear that our members
wear when responding to incidents. It’s inline with what we’ve done in the past and we make multiple
purchases of this size annually. There will be another one of these come springtime when we go to hire our
new personnel. | can take any questions if anybody has any?
Mayor Donchess
Anybody have questions or comments for Assistant Chief Buxton. Alderman O’Brien?
Alderman O’Brien
Yeah, Chief | know the answer as you know, but to assist the public because it is like you say a reoccurring
event. But the life expectancy of this protective clothing, it does have a life expectancy and needs to be
replaced. And plus our firefighters are going to multiple incidents and they do need a couple of sets. And
every single incident you go to creates wear and tear. So there is contamination. So can you just give us a
background, how important it is that there is a life expectancy and why we are rotating this to keep the member
safe?
Steve Buxton, Assistant Fire Chief
Certainly, Steve Buxton, Nashua Fire. So basically industry standard requires us to replace interior structural
firefighting every 10 years. All of our members have 2 sets of protective clothing and the reason for that is
because when they come back from an incident we have to decon, clean their gear of carcinogens and debris
and other items as such that aren’t very good for us. We have a program in place that we’ve been adhering to
for several years now. The plan has been approved by the Board of Fire Commissioners and it keeps us so
we are replacing their primary set somewhere in the 6 to 8 year range so their second set is right on the cusp
of just outside that 10 year window. The reality of it is they are not in that second set that often unless they are
laundering their primary set.
For instance yesterday we had a multiple alarm fire down in the south end of the City. So 38 members of the
Fire Department went back to quarters after, utilized the extractor machines in the fire houses to clean their
protective clothing. Obviously, they need something to wear in responding to incidents while that’s being
laundered. So that secondary set of PPE is put in service at that point in time. Does that answer your
question, Alderman O’Brien?
Alderman O’Brien
Yes, it does. Thank you Chief.
Steve Buxton, Assistant Fire Chief
Thank you sir.
