• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.670-681
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• 2017

Firefighting hoods protect the head, face, and neck areas of officials while they perform firefighting services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the head size of Korean firefighting officials in order to establish the dimensions necessary to construct firefighting hoods. A total of 98 male firefighting officials participated in this study and 11 body dimensions, necessary for the construction of firefighting hoods, were measured. The data collected from the firefighting officials were compared to the general adult male data from the Size Korea national anthropometric study. The heights, weights, head circumferences, head heights, and bitragion arcs of the firefighters were significantly larger than those of general adult males, which shows that firefighting officials generally have larger body and head sizes than general adult males. Based on the results of Pearson's correlation coefficients, head circumference and head height were judged to be the important measurements for the construction of the firefighting hoods. Thus, these two measurements were chosen as the basic dimensions of the cross tabulation analysis. As a result, head circumferences of 57.00~60.99cm and head heights of 23.00~25.99 cm were found to be important measurement ranges among the firefighters. This study is expected to be used as the basis for the creation of firefighting hoods that help to ensure the safe rescue activities for firefighting officials.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.520-533
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• 2023

The present study developed a test protocol for evaluating the mobility of firefighting chemical and flame personal protective equipment (PPE) for the National 119 Rescue Headquarters in Korea and suggested ergonomic design factors to improve their mobility and performance. Six types of PPE were employed, including three types for flame protective PPE (5 ~ 6 kg excluding the self-contained breathing apparatus), and three types for chemical and flame protective PPE (8 ~ 11 kg). These PPEs are used by the 119 Rescue firefighters. Three male firefighters (34.3 ± 1.2 y in age, 175 ± 8 cm in height, 81 ± 13 kg in body weight) participated in the mobility test and interview. A mobility test protocol consisting of 16 components (nine postures and seven motions including a dexterity test) along with a visibility test were developed based on pre-interviews and literature reviews. The findings indicated that the clothing microclimate humidity on the neck and chest exceeded 85%RH on average for all the six PPE conditions, with the chest area reaching as high as 98%RH. This high humidity caused fogging inside the visor and impaired visibility. The requirements for improving the PPE design in terms of mobility varied depending on whether it was the separated types or all-in-one types, particularly regarding the hood and gloves design. The findings of this study can be applied to improve the design of Level A_PPE for firefighters. The mobility test protocol and visibility test developed in this study can also be applied to other types of Level A impermeable PPE.