For every firefighter, it’s standard equipment.

Those bulky, thick clothes called turnout gear are designed to protect fire crews from heat and flames.

“We have gear that’s designed, personal protective equipment to protect us, and simply put, it’s killing us,” declares Edward Kelly, General President of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF).

The firefighters’ union, which is meeting this week in the Twin Cities, is sounding the alarm about an invisible enemy in turnout gear: PFAS chemicals.

“It’s not just the things that we’re exposed to in a structure fire on a day-to-day basis,” Kyle Thornberg, a St. Paul firefighter explains. “It’s our actual protective clothing that we’re wearing that is making us sick.”

A 2023 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that the textiles in turnout gear often contain PFAS— a collection of chemicals, the report says, linked to ‘an increased risk of cancer.’

“Turnout gear is composed of multiple layers,” says Dr. Zeke McKinney, an occupational and environmental medicine physician at HealthPartners. “Basically, the most concerning is the moisture barrier in the middle, which has some of these chemicals in it.”

McKinney echoes the institute’s latest findings in a follow-up study: Protective clothing releases more PFAS when it is subject to wear and tear.

“There have been plenty of studies showing that over time, as these gear degrade, that this PFAS can kind of leach through the different layers of the gear, and people can potentially get skin exposure to it for sure.”

We wondered about a direct link between PFAS exposure and cancer.

McKinney says cancer can be caused by a number of factors in the body, but he answered this way.

“I think a better question would be, are PFAS a significant contributor to the risk of cancer to firefighters, and the answer is yes.”

That cancer threat is a major concern for firefighters who wear turnout gear on virtually every emergency call.

“As firefighters, we get exposed to it every day we put our gear on,” Kelly says. “Cancer is the number one killer of firefighters. Three of four firefighters die from job-related cancer.”  

Now, the union is calling for municipalities and fire departments to transition to PFAS-free turnout gear.

“When our members put their gear on, they should not be exposed to a Group A carcinogen,” notes Sean DeCrane, IAFF’s Director of Health and Safety Operational Services. “We need to look at alternatives.”

Some cities are moving forward.

San Francisco is already making plans to have PFAS-free gear for city firefighters by mid-2026.

Several other jurisdictions, including Denver, Miami, Florida, and Prince George’s County in Maryland, are also testing PFAS-free gear.

Under Minnesota law, turnout gear must be PFAS-free by 2032, unless PFAS is determined to be a ‘currently unavoidable use.’

But there are hurdles ahead.

A standard set of turnout gear can cost about $3500.

PFAS-free gear can cost about $1000 more.

In St. Paul, union members say they’ve started a joint initiative with fire department leadership to start looking.

“Going forward, it’s our ambition to purchase PPE that doesn’t have these forever chemicals in there,” Thornberg says. “The single greatest thing that we can do to reduce our exposure to occupational cancers is by staying out of our turnout gear, our firefighter ensemble.”

The IAFF recommends its members refrain from wearing turnout gear in firehouse living areas, store the gear inside a plastic container or bag, clean fire apparatus cabs after every fire, and wear the gear only when needed for work safety purposes.

“Traditionally, we have seen firefighters work out in their turnout gear, practice in their turnout gear, exercise, do demonstrations, community functions, things like that,” Thornberg says. “We recommend that our members don’t wear their turnout gear unless it’s absolutely necessary to do their job.”

McKinney hopes the distribution and use of PFAS-free gear comes sooner than later.   

“If this is something these guys have to use every day, just to do their job, this one has risen to a level of great importance as far as trying to get that out of the gear as soon as possible,” he says.