Will Female Firefighters Soon Have Better Fitting Gear?
From The NFPA Podcast by National Fire Protection Association
December 23, 2025 · 41 min
About this episode
The episode discusses the challenges female firefighters face with ill-fitting protective gear and features researchers working on a project to design better-fitting clothing.
About 80 percent of female firefighters say that their personal protective clothing doesn't fit right, and studies show that ill-fitting gear puts women at greater risk of being injured on the job. In this podcast from 2023, Jesse talks to two textile researchers working on multi-year project to better understand the issue and to gather the data needed to design female-specific turnout gear. Before the episode, Jesse gives a quick update on the project, which has now moved onto a crucial second phase. Researchers are now gathering measurements from thousands of women in the fire service, which they will use to design the first prototypes of female specific personal protective clothing. Researchers are looking for female firefighters who are willing share their measurement data. This can be done by yourself with an app on your phone and takes only a few minutes. Visit, nfpa.org/femaleppe to learn how to help. Links: Visit the research page to learn more about the project and how to submit measurement data Read and NFPA Journal feature story about the projec t to understand and solve the problem of ill-fitting PPE for female firefighters. Watch a webinar presentation with…
People in this episode
Host: Jesse
Guests: Cassandra Kwon, Meredith McQuerry
Topics covered
- female firefighters
- personal protective clothing
- firefighter safety
- textile research
- gear fitting
- women in fire service
Keywords
- female firefighters
- protective clothing
- gear fitting
- firefighter safety
- textile research
- PPE
- turnout gear
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: National Fire Protection Association, nfpa.org
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