The F.I.E.R.O. Fire PPE Symposium is designed to be a hard-hitting, factual series of presentations about the PPE that most firefighters use on a regular basis. Future symposiums can address other less often used items and provide more detail on the subjects of the first symposium.

LION’s own Karen Lehtonen will be a speaker at this year’s event. Karen has been with LION since November 2000. As LION’s director of products, she is responsible for product, fabric and material developments. She also oversees the certification of all product lines and the operation of the LION Lab.

Karen will be part of a panel presentation on “An Investigation of the Useful Life of Firefighter Turnout Gear,” which will provide the results of a research study on a post-use analysis of firefighter turnout gear. The study was conducted on used and retired gear by following the NFPA 1851 guidelines for routine and advanced inspection. The gear was also evaluated according to the minimum requirements of NFPA 1971. This study evaluated if a firefighter in the field could effectively determine if their gear was safe to use.

Karen has been involved with testing products for the fire service since 1995. From 1995 to 2000, she was employed by Intertek Testing Services a third party testing and certification organization. It was during this time that she began serving on NFPA technical committees for fire and emergency services products.

With LION, Karen serves on 5 NFPA technical committees (listed below) as well as the ASTM F23 protective clothing committee and the ASTM E54 homeland security committee:

• NFPA Structural and Proximity Fire Fighting Protective Clothing and Equipment
• NFPA Special Operations Protective Clothing and Equipment
• NFPA Emergency Medical Services Protective Clothing and Equipment
• NFPA Hazardous Materials Protective Clothing and Equipment
• NFPA Technical Correlating Committee on Fire and Emergency Services Protective Clothing and Equipment