Self Contained Breathing Apparatus
Early American firefighters had to face not only fire and the effects of heat with little or no water supply, but also the debilitating effects of smoke with nothing at all to protect them. As was the case for firemen all over the world, they could not effectively operate under the heavy smoke conditions encountered during structure fires. Fire service folklore recounts the practice of firemen growing long beards to help them breathe heavy smoke. The theory was a fireman would dip his whiskers in a pail of water, then clinch his wet beard between his teeth and breath through his mouth, using the wet beard as a filter. One of the earliest documented cases of the use of breathing apparatus comes from England. In 1818 a farmer's barn caught fire in Whitstable, Kent, a coastal city southeast of London. The barn had many horses and other livestock. The owner used a small hand-operated water pump in an attempt to extinguish the blaze, but the stream was insufficient. He was unable to make his way through the heavy smoke to save his horses. John Deane, then 18 years old, removed the helmet from an old suit of armor and placed it on the farmer's head. Deane then worked the same hand-operated pump to supply air instead of water to the helmet, and the farmer was able to enter the barn and lead his horses to safety. Deane took employment as a ship's corker at Barnard's shipyard. During this time he discovered the problem of fighting fires within the holds of ships. And in 1823 he perfected a smoke-breathing apparatus, or smoke helmet. The smoke helmet kept out the bad air, and was fed fresh air through a hose that ran from the back of the helmet to an air pump located outside the smoky area. Deane and his brother Charles Deane obtained one of the first patents covering a device to protect firefighters. Not much happened to the invention for several years. Then in 1827, the Seibe Co. manufactured the first smoke helmets. As a practical answer to overcoming the difficulties of breathing smoke, many seemingly strange and unusual inventions were tried. One of the earliest recorded attempts was in France, where the "Apparatus Aldini" was tested in 1825. This was a thick mask of asbestos worn over the head. Another mask made of woven iron wire was placed over the first. The device provided a small margin of heat protection, provided the wearer was able to maintain the air space between the two masks and not allow the iron mask to touch the inner mask. It is believed this mask provided the wearer only the small amount of trapped air within for breathing. The functionality of the mask left much to be desired, but the scientific testing by Aldini was ground breaking. He conducted tests of his apparatus under actual fire conditions. This was the start of serious efforts to protect firefighters from smoke as they operated at fires. Many strange and unusual-looking devices were invented, manufactured and tried on the fireground with a wide range of results and effectiveness. Two years before Aldini's device was in use, a patent was issued to Charles Anthony Deane for a smoke and diving apparatus. This system consisted of a closed helmet, flexible air tubes and a pump. The air was directed across the glasses in the front of the helmet to clear breathing condensation. This apparatus was apparently used with some success by firefighters in London and Paris. In 1824, a miner named John Roberts came up with a "smoke respirator," or hood, that would allow a person "to enter a dense smoke condition without any danger." Various types of filter masks were developed and used by firemen in Europe and the United States. In 1861, an inventor named Bradbrooke devised a "smoke and noxious vapour respirator" designed to allow a person to "enter a building however dense the smoke or vapour might be without injury." Among the earliest forerunners of the gas mask was a device invented in 1847 by Lewis P. Haslett of Louisville, Ky. This device employed two one-way clapper valves: one to allow the inhalation of air through a bulb-shaped filter, and the other to vent exhaled air directly into the atmosphere. The filter material — wool or another porous substance moistened with water — was suited to keeping out dust or other solid particulates, but would not have been effective against poisonous gas. Two years later, Haslett's Lung Protector was granted the first U.S. patent for an air purifying respirator. In the early 1850s, Scottish chemist John Stenhouse was investigating the power of various forms of charcoal to capture and hold large volumes of gas. He put the science to use in one of the first masks capable of removing toxic gases from incoming air. The mask's filter, made of powdered charcoal, was held between two dome-shaped layers of wire gauze covering the wearer's nose and mouth. Although crude by modern standards, the invention was practical and effective enough that certain chemical factories in London equipped their workers with it. Charcoal, in its activated form, eventually would become the most widely used filter medium for gas masks. According to an 1874 patent, London's Samuel Barton designed a device for “permitting respiration in places where the atmosphere is charged with noxious gases, or vapors, smoke, or other impurities.” It included a rubber-and-metal face cover, head harness, glass eyepieces, rubber-coated hood, and one-way valves for exhalation and inhalation. A metal canister on the front of the mask contained alternating layers of filtering materials: charcoal, lime and glycerin-soaked cotton wool. In addition to the canister gas mask, the patent described a simple closed-circuit re-breather in which the user would inhale and exhale through tubes attached to an air reservoir carried on the back. In this alternate configuration, a filter containing lime would remove excess carbon dioxide from the breathing loop. The late 1800s saw a number of patents for cup-shaped masks, one which was designed by Hutson R. Hurd in 1879 to “prevent the admission of poisonous or noxious gases, or particles of dust or other matter, into the throat and lungs.” Such masks, vaguely resembling pig's snouts when worn, fit over the mouth and nose and were secured to the head with straps. A check valve on the side or top of the casing allowed exhaled air to escape. The H.S. Cover Co., named after its founder, produced cup-type masks for at least two decades after its establishment in 1894. The company was still alive in the 1970s, at which time it was the oldest respirator manufacturer in the United States. A portable breathing apparatus designed for work in mines was introduced at a competition being held in the Belgium Academy of Science in 1853. James Braidwood, the Superintendent of the London Fire Brigade, invented another type of hose mask at about the same time. To supply air and protect the firefighter from smoke, a tube was connected to an air pump attached to the engine outside the fire building. A stout leather dress and hood were worn to protect the wearer from heat and flames. Thickly glazed eye holes were provided in the hood. To furnish light a powerful reflecting lantern was worn on the chest. A shrill whistle was attached to the hood for emergency communications. Braidwood tested his invention under severe conditions during experimental fires in the vaults of the Fire Brigade Headquarters in Wattling Street. The system was used to rescue three small children from a burning house on Fetter Lane. Numerous men and women were also reportedly saved at other fires by men so equipped. In 1863, a patent was granted to A. Lacour for his invention, the "improved respiring apparatus." This was actually a self-contained breathing apparatus of sorts and consisted of an airtight bag made of two thicknesses of canvas, separated by a lining of India rubber. The device was carried on the fireman's back and held in place by two shoulder straps and a belt around the waist. The bag was filled with pure air inflated with a pair of bellows, and came in different sizes for air durations of 10 to 30 minutes. From the upper part of the bag two India rubber tubes were connected to a mouthpiece that was held in place by biting down with the teeth. Corks were placed in the mouthpiece when the bag was being filled through a faucet at the bottom of the bag. The corks were then removed when the wearer was ready to begin breathing the stored air. It came with a pair of goggles to protect the eyes from smoke, a rubber clamp for the nose and an air whistle that could be pressed by hand to signal. Tests made by various fire departments, including New York City, Brooklyn and even the U.S. Navy, proved the device worked to some degree. In the 1870s, fire departments were buying and using "Neally's Smoke Excluding Mask." This filter-type mask had a small bag of water that was suspended by a neck strap. Connected to the water bag were two sponge filters that were kept wet when the bag was squeezed. Air was drawn through the filters to the mouthpiece in the face mask. This "most perfect apparatus" was marketed to fire departments for $15. In 1891, Bernhard Loeb of Berlin, had been producing and selling respiratory protective equipment through his own company since the 1870s. The apparatus for which Loeb earned several patents in Europe and the United States was designed to “purify foul or vitiated air… rendered foul by smoke, dust or noxious gases and vapors.” A triple chambered metal canister, carried on the waist, enclosed a filtering system containing liquid chemicals, several layers of granulated charcoal and porous wadding. A flexible hose tube connected the canister to a mouthpiece through which the wearer could breathe the purified air. An alternate configuration had the canister attached directly to a closed helmet surrounding the wearer's head. Users of the equipment in the United States included the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Fire Department. In 1892, a Denver firefighter named Merriman developed one of the many early variations of the hose mask, and one of the few to be produced in the United States. An elephant-trunk-like tube tapped into an air hose that ran parallel to the water hose. In 1902, Louis Muntz of Winona, Minn., invented a basic gas mask with full head covering. A canister projecting from the front of the mask contained ducts, valves, a sponge prefilter, and a carbon-based adsorbent. The Siebe-Gorman Co. and chief designers Fleuss and Robert Davis made a large and lasting impact on respirator design. The first of Fleuss' masks, developed in the 1870s, consisted of a mask of rubberized fabric covering the whole face, connected via tubes to a breathing bag and compressed oxygen cylinder. It also included a carbon-dioxide-absorbent chamber that allowed the same air to be breathed a number of times. The equipment proved itself in a series of mine rescue operations in England beginning in 1880. The Vajen-Bader Co. produced firemen's respiratory equipment since its founding in 1881. The Vajen-Bader Patent Smoke Protector of the 1890s and early 1900s sealed off the wearer's head from the environment and supplied breathable air from a compressed-air cylinder on the back of the helmet. These oxygen rebreathers continued to be improved slowly by a number of people. Bernhard Dräger, of the The Dräger Co. of Germany, designed a closed-circuit rebreather in 1903. It operated similar to the Siebe-Gorman self-contained devices. Dräger breathing devices and other safety equipment grew so popular in the mine rescue business that the word “draegerman” eventually became a synonym for an underground rescue worker. The company claims to have manufactured 2 million protective masks for the German Armed Forces during World War I. These units were used for many years in many major fire departments in Europe and America. The first successful American self-contained breathing apparatus was the Gibbs. Experiments with this unit began in 1915 and by 1918 they were being manufactured by Edison Laboratories in Orange, NJ. In 1920, filter masks took a big step forward when Johns Hopkins University and the University of California completed their research on a gas mask designed to be used in a carbon monoxide-filled atmosphere. Their efforts produced a catalyst called Hopcalite that did not absorb or remove the carbon monoxide, but rather oxidized (burned) it and formed the relatively harmless carbon dioxide. This was one of the most important benefits science had given firefighters to that time. Toward the end of World War II, Scott Aviation was manufacturing breathing equipment that allowed air crews to operate at extreme altitudes. One story goes that a number of Scott engineers watched a smoky fire being fought in a nearby building. They were amazed that the firemen had to operate in such a severe smoke condition and they decided to see if they could adapt their equipment to suit firefighting. Working with the Boston and New York City fire departments, Scott introduced the AirPac in late 1945 after a year of field testing. This basic design was modified and improved as wartime invention gave way to space technology. NASA and its space program became a new testing ground that directly improved work on the fireground. Modern firefighters now have more air, with less weight and a lower profile. Numerous manufacturers currently offer strong, lightweight air cylinders and breathing apparatus with integrated personal alarms and radio systems. Firefighters have come a long way from breathing through their wet whiskers, or sounding the shrill whistle attached to their leather hood.










