Overkill? Multiple fasteners on turnout coats

[ryefd192 2]

I was watching How Its Made on Discovery and they were doing turnout coats. The coat they made had a zipper then velcro, snaps, and hooks to fasten the front. I found this to be a bit overkill. Any coat I've ever had had two out of the four of these in some combination. I couldn't imagine the need for all four. What do you guys think?

p.s. This might be the wrong forum for this, I dunno....

[SageVigiles 1,194]

I think if I was issued that gear, I probably wouldnt end up using the snaps or hooks. Zipper and Velcro are perfectly legitimate... Would seem over-redundant to have much more than two.

[Dondestro 9]

Alex i believe our new gear has zipper and velcro...personally i would like to have a zipper and the old style hooks. personal experience being a "larger then average" guy the velcro just dosen't cut but can get by.......bets are for the show they put all three just to show all the things they can put on so they wouldn't have to do several different coats. Along the lines of turnout gear what does everyone think about built in harness they are putting in the coats now.?

[SageVigiles 1,194]

You mean the Drag Rescue Device? I think its a great idea... should make RIT work a helluva lot easier.

[joshlost818 6]

Ya as far as I know the gear the department was issued was velcro and zipper and there has been no problems yet.

[efdny2003 16]

They may have been showing all different devices they can put on a turnout coat for closing, and put it on one coat so as to save money and do it on one and not 2 or three coats. Also, does the gear for aircraft firefighting have two ways of closing like normal structural firefighting, or do they have 3? As far as the built-in harness, my department had a semi-FAST drill, where we actually used them, and they were great. It was a lot easier to drag a firefighter even wearing his pack with that harness.

[IzzyEng4 427]

Just make sure you don't have velcro on the inside and D-hook on the out. I had a coat issued to me like this and after one fire, needless to say I had no chest hair left. The damn thing opened up on me. Needless to say I got rid of it and went back to my old coat.