Nearly every person in the U.S. spends time around cooling appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners. The current refrigerants are now being phased out due to their effect on global warming through the Kigali Agreement and other international agreements signed by the U.S. and almost all other countries in the world. The optimum replacements are flammable hydrocarbons, introducing significant wide-scale risk. The nearly 1.2 million firefighters will soon be addressing this emerging hazard.
Environmental policy is causing a shift from the current refrigerants used in appliances to a new class that pose fire hazard to occupants and emergency responders. The goal of this 2-year project is to enhance firefighter safety and reduce potential injury by providing free training on the hazards from appliances with flammable refrigerants.
Research goal: This project seeks to enhance firefighter safety and reduce potential injury by providing free training on the hazards from appliances with flammable refrigerants. This project will document the information about flammable refrigerants technologies and the hazards to emergency responders. This project will develop interactive training modules and a dissemination program to transfer the knowledge to the U.S. fire service.
Download the project summary. (PDF)