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San Francisco Fire Academy Under Scrutiny
The San Francisco Bay Area’s NBC affiliate has done an extensive expose on a series of complaints by former fire academy recruits, several of which have led to lawsuits.
Wah!
Abusing recruits is unnecessary and does not being them in as part of the team, which is what you want. That is unacceptable behavior and needs to be quashed. Racial slurs and the like are not okay.
However two of the complaints that the story mentions don’t hold water. Firefighters have to train “in the heat of the day” in thier full PPE. If you want your fire department to be there in mid afternoon when you have a fire, they need to train then as well to learn thier limits. If an unusual heat wave were coming through with conditions that are almost never seen in a locality, then I can see suspending training. But if this was just a typical summer day then it is a matter of keeping hydrated and finding limits in safe environment before they go out on the street.
The other one is having a skin condition that won’t let you shave. You can’t shave, you can’t go to recruit school. It is for the recruits own safety as OSHA regulations and common sense say you can’t get a good and dependable breathing apparatus seal with facial hair. This one has been tried in court numerous times and the fire department almost always wins.
Not true for beards. Pseudofolliculitis barbae is a real condition that affects mostly African Americans but can affect anyone who has coarse or tightly curling thick hair. My department has lost every single lawsuit when they tried to enforce a shaving rule, as a result a member may have a closely cropped 1/4″ beard. Achieving a tight seal with a facepiece with only a clean shaven face is a fallacy, getting an air tight seal has more to do with the shape of a person’s face. As a result, all Firefighters must have a yearly facepiece fit test, if you can pass it with or without a beard you’re good to go.
We operate in a similar way Steve. If you can seal routinely we allow some facial hair. OSHA doesn’t though (1910.134.g.1 and 1a) and can force the hand of the employer on the issue, as far as I know. Pseudofolliculitis barbae has been tried and I have seen a number of cases where dismissal for not shaving was upheld as a safety concern. I have seen where very large departments have been told to put them on assignment where they are not required to use a respirator. The information I offered was simply anecdotal of what I have read.
I personally believe that the standards on face seals needs to be readdressed and be made a functional issue. You either can or can’t seal and let that be the determining factor.
In this case they are in academy so I would assume they are probationary employees so they can be dismissed without cause anyway, will be interesting to see where it goes.
For the record, both OSHA and NFPA prohibit facial hair at the point where the facepiece touches the face. Here is the OSHA requirement:
1910.134(g)(1)(i) The employer shall not permit respirators with tight-fitting facepieces to be worn by employees who have:
1910.134(g)(1)(i)(A) Facial hair that comes between the sealing surface of the facepiece and the face or that interferes with valve function
There are a few cases where African American firefighters have challenged it, but – absent poor lawyering or an intent by the city administration to concede the issue – the safety concerns will prevail. Case in point: Fitzpatrick v. City of Atlanta, 2 F.3d 1112 (11th Cir., 1993) – upholding the elimination of a shadow beard exception that had been allowed due to concerns about Pseudofolliculitis Barbae.
Sounds like it’s a bad rule. If the seal can be achieved with facial hair present why do OSHA and NFPA give a shit? Isn’t the fact that a seal is achieved more important than a person’s appearance??
No argument from me… Trust me – I’d love to see it changed… but until OSHA and/or NFPA change the rule it is what it is.