PFAS in Turnout Gear: What Firefighters Should Know

You trust your turnout gear to keep fire, heat, and blood-borne pathogens off your body. What most firefighters don’t find out until years into their career is that the same water- and stain-resistant coatings that make that gear work are built from PFAS — “forever chemicals” now linked to elevated cancer risk, cholesterol problems, and immune dysfunction. This isn’t a reason to panic. It’s a reason to understand what’s actually going on and what you can control.

What’s Actually in Your Gear

Turnout gear is built in layers — an outer shell, a moisture barrier, and a thermal liner — and PFAS treatments show up in more than one of them, primarily to repel water and resist staining. That’s not a design flaw; it’s the whole point of the fabric. The problem is that PFAS compounds don’t break down. They persist in the environment and in the human body, and firefighters as an occupational group have been shown in multiple studies to carry higher PFAS blood levels than the general public.

Where things get more complicated is the source. It’s tempting to assume gear is the sole culprit, but researchers investigating this haven’t landed on a single clean answer. NIST research has pointed to gear wear-and-tear — abrasion, heat exposure, and age — as a factor in how much PFAS a garment sheds over its service life. Other studies looking specifically at used gear during training scenarios haven’t found it to be a major contamination source in that context. The honest takeaway: turnout gear is very likely one contributor among several, alongside firefighting foam (AFFF), combustion byproducts at fire scenes, and even some consumer products. You don’t need a perfect answer to start managing your exposure.

Why This Matters for Your Long-Term Health

PFAS exposure has been associated in research with several outcomes that matter for anyone building a long career in this job: elevated cholesterol, immune system changes, and an increased risk of certain cancers, including kidney and testicular cancer. Firefighters already carry a disproportionate cancer burden compared to the general population, and while PFAS isn’t the only factor driving that, it’s one more piece of a cumulative exposure picture that includes soot, diesel exhaust, and combustion products.

This is why PFAS shouldn’t be treated as an isolated worry — it belongs in the same conversation as your cancer screening schedule, your annual physical, and your baseline bloodwork. If your department offers PFAS blood testing or you can access it independently, knowing your number gives you a real data point instead of a guess.

Reducing Your Exposure: What Actually Helps

You can’t eliminate PFAS exposure in this job, but you can meaningfully reduce it. Fire service occupational health guidance and IAFF recommendations converge on a handful of practices that make a measurable difference:

1. Keep turnout gear out of living quarters. Don’t bring gear into bunk rooms, day rooms, or personal vehicle cabs. Store it in a sealed bag or closed locker, separate from where you eat, sleep, and relax.
2. Wash your hands after handling gear, especially before eating — PFAS and combustion residue transfer easily from fabric to skin to food.
3. Follow NFPA 1851 cleaning protocols and get gear professionally laundered on schedule rather than letting it sit soiled between calls.
4. Clean apparatus bays and PPE storage areas with a HEPA-filtered vacuum or wet mop — skip the air hose or leaf blower, which just aerosolizes contaminated dust for everyone to breathe.
5. Doff contaminated gear as soon as practical after a fire, including hoods, and bag it for cleaning rather than wearing it back to the station.
6. Advocate for gear replacement on schedule. Older, more worn gear appears to shed more PFAS than newer gear — another reason not to let turnout kits age past their service life.
7. Get baseline and periodic bloodwork if it’s available to you, and don’t skip it just because you feel fine. PFAS exposure and its downstream effects on cholesterol and organ function are asymptomatic until they aren’t.

Where the Gear Industry Is Headed

The pressure to remove PFAS from turnout gear isn’t coming from firefighters alone — manufacturers, researchers, and advocacy groups including the IAFF are actively pushing for PFAS-free alternatives that still meet NFPA thermal and moisture protection standards. That transition is underway but not finished, which means for the next several years most active-duty firefighters will still be wearing PFAS-treated gear at some point in their career. Reducing exposure now, while pushing your department toward gear replacement cycles and PFAS-free options as they mature, is the realistic play.

The Bottom Line

PFAS exposure is one more occupational hazard layered on top of everything else this job already asks of your body. You didn’t choose the chemistry in your gear, but you can control how you store it, how often it’s cleaned, and whether you’re tracking your own bloodwork instead of assuming you’re fine. If you want help building a broader health optimization plan that accounts for the specific occupational exposures firefighters and police officers face — from PFAS to shift work to cardiovascular risk — that’s exactly what we cover at policefire.health. Your career shouldn’t cost you your health after you hang up the gear for good.

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. BadgeBiohacking (policefire.health) is a comparison and review site. We may earn affiliate commissions from links on this site. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before starting any treatment.