Tony Petrilli On Improving Fire Shelters For Firefighters

Published: Thursday, April 2, 2015 - 3:51pm
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(Photo by Mark Brodie - KJZZ)
Firefighters practice deploying and getting out of their fire shelters in 2014.

The United States Forest Service is looking at potentially making changes to the design of its fire shelters, devices firefighters use as a last resort, when they’re trapped by a fire. Those changes could include making the shelters out of a different material.

Tony Petrilli is the project leader for the Fire Shelter Project Review, with the U.S. Forest Service. The testing is happening this year, and he expects to lay out potential options next year. If fire managers decided to go with a new fire shelter, it’ll take about a year to design and produce them, and get them to firefighters.

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