One of the classic, time-tested drills that firefighters like to perform involves covering their facemasks to eliminate their sense of sight, and conducting a room or building search. For the visual impairment part of the task, I’ve seen people wear a protective hood backward or even place aluminum foil over their facemasks. Of course, the old standby, filling a room with smoke, is the most realistic way to prepare firefighters for what they might experience in a fire building.
The problem is that each of these methods of inhibiting visibility has a drawback.
- Filling a room with smoke can be extremely difficult. To use real smoke, you may need a permit, which isn’t even available in many places. And theatrical smoke requires a smoke machine, which many departments don’t have; the smoke doesn’t necessarily reduce visibility enough; and the area needs to be ventilated thoroughly when finished.
- Turning a hood backward can stretch the elastic, damaging the hood. Plus, it may not fully restrict visibility.
- And aluminum foil? Come on–you’re wearing $1,500 turnout gear and a $4,000 breathing apparatus. Foil just doesn’t work well enough.
Fortunately, the folks at Buddy Covers have come up with a product that can black out the SCBA mask in a simple fashion. Buddy Covers’ Blackout Cover is a lightweight, water-repellent, form-fitting spandex “sock” that you can use for those training sessions where you want to black out an SCBA facepiece–a great alternative to any makeshift tool.
The original Blackout Covers ($30) are fast and easy to use, including donning and doffing, and they enabled us to effectively black out firefighters’ masks during a search-and-rescue training drill that lasted the duration of an SCBA bottle.
A new model–the Blackout Cover with Air Hole ($35)–has a hole in it so users can hook up the airline, blacking out the mask and also allowing firefighters to be on air during the drill to make it more realistic.
Interestingly, Buddy Covers products were initially developed to protect sports equipment, such as football helmets, skis, snowboards, baseball bats and golf clubs. But fortunately for us, the company expanded into the first responder market. They actually make a couple of other products for first responders–a Kit Cover, which is essentially a general ditty bag that separates and protects various tools ($50), and an SCBA Mask Cover ($25). A nice, ancillary product that may be worth exploring for anyone who needs to keep boots, shoes or other items dry and insect- and/or dirt-free are Buddy Covers’ Boot Covers ($35). They breathe well, letting air in but keeping moisture out.
The Buddy Covers products are very durable. We actually tried to rip them with our hands with no success–it seemed difficult to damage the products. One nice bonus is that all of the Buddy Cover products are machine- and hand-washable.
So if you like to conduct these drills with your firefighters, the Blackout Cover can simplify the set-up. In short, it’s a simple tool that does a nice job.
Blackout Cover
Pros
+ Durable
+ Inexpensive
+ Easy to use
Cons
– None
Buddy Covers
201 West Greyhound Pass
Carmel, IN 46032-7006
Tel: 888/574-2839
Fax: 317/846-5766
E-mail: buddycovers@indy.rr.com
Web: www.buddycovers.com
