Contamination does not stop at the fireground. Protective clothing carries combustion products back to the station, and how a department cleans, inspects and records its gear affects both firefighter health and the working life of the equipment. The standard that governs all of it is NFPA 1850.
What NFPA 1850 is
NFPA 1850, Standard on Selection, Care, and Maintenance of Protective Ensembles for Structural and Proximity Firefighting and Open-Circuit Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, is the 2026-edition consolidation of two standards departments had been reading side by side for years: NFPA 1851, which covered the protective ensemble, and NFPA 1852, which covered SCBA. Their last standalone editions were 2020 and 2019 respectively; neither will be revised again on its own.
The practical effect is that the ensemble and the breathing apparatus are now governed by one document, with one set of definitions for what counts as soiling, what counts as contamination and what a department is expected to do about either. If your standard operating procedures still cite 1851 or 1852, they cite superseded numbers.
What the standard asks a department to have
NFPA 1850 does not simply say “wash the gear”. It sets out a program, and the program has parts that a department has to be able to show:
- Selection. Choosing the ensemble against the hazards the department actually faces, before any of the care requirements come into play.
- Routine and advanced cleaning. Routine cleaning is what a member can do after an incident. Advanced cleaning is a thorough machine process performed on a defined schedule and after specific exposures, by a trained member of the department or by a verified independent service provider.
- Specialized cleaning and decontamination. A separate path for gear exposed to particular hazards: chemical, biological or other contamination that ordinary advanced cleaning is not intended to address.
- Routine and advanced inspection. Routine inspection looks for soiling, contamination, physical damage, thermal damage, material degradation and the condition of the visibility trim. Advanced inspection adds the things you have to open the garment to see: seam integrity, stitching, liner attachment and shifting, wristlet condition, closure and hook-and-loop function, label legibility, and how coat and trouser actually fit and overlap as a system.
- Repair, retirement and record keeping. Who may repair what, when an element comes out of service for good, and the documentation that has to follow each item through its life.
The decision path matters as much as the cleaning itself. Whether a garment gets routine cleaning, advanced cleaning or specialized decontamination depends on what it was exposed to, and that judgment is meant to be made deliberately rather than by habit.
This page describes the shape and intent of NFPA 1850. It is not a substitute for the standard and does not reproduce its text. Cleaning frequencies, inspection intervals, retirement criteria and the full inspection checklists are in the standard itself, and NFPA makes its codes available to read online at no charge with a free account. Check which edition your authority having jurisdiction has adopted before relying on any of this.
Two ways to clean the gear
NFPA 1850 sets out what advanced cleaning has to achieve. It does not mandate one machine or one chemistry to get there, and two quite different technologies are in service in the fire service today.
WetWash technology
Water, detergent chemistry and mechanical action in a purpose-built washer-extractor. The established approach, and the one most stations are equipped for.
Liquid CO2 technology
A waterless solvent process run at room temperature in a pressurized chamber, with no separate drying stage and no wash water to discharge.
Who does the work
Standing all of this up in house is a serious undertaking, and a department does not have to. An independent service provider can educate the department and step back, take the parts the department cannot cover, or run the whole program, and the choice of which shapes what equipment, training and records the department needs.
Independent service providers: what they do and what to ask
General information for fire service decision makers, not compliance advice. NFPA and the standards referenced here are the property of the National Fire Protection Association; FireBrigade.com is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for NFPA.