In the world of FR safety apparel there are a lot of confusing terms that get thrown around: NFPA 70E, ANSI FR, HRC (We feel we’ve done a pretty good job clarifying them). But there are a couple terms that are very common and very easily confused, yet have significant differences. Flame Resistant and Fire Retardant.

As mentioned in our previous blog post “ANSI FR Compliance in a Nutshell“, all of our ANSI FR compliant high visibility apparel complies with NFPA 70E. What is NFPA, and what is the 70E standard? We’re glad you asked…

What is NFPA?

The NFPA, short for National Fire Protection Association, is the country’s leading fire prevention advocate. In their effort to minimize risk of fire and associated injuries, the NFPA develops and publishes consensus codes and standards for fire safety.

You can spend hours combing the internet for information on Flame Resistance compliance under ANSI standards, and end up just as confused as you were when you went into it. That’s why we have decided to distill all that complex jargon into one quick and easy-to-digest post. For any further clarification please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll try our best to point you in the right direction.

Currently ANSI compliance for high visibility workwear is defined under the 107-2010 standard. While the current standard covers all aspects of high-viz compliance the FR requirements can be easily skimmed over because the section is relatively small.

HRC (Hazard Risk Category) is a safety standard outlined in NFPA 70E that simply means that every work environment can be categorized by potential risk of electrical burn. Each employer is responsible for knowing the HRC Level (via risk assessment) for any job or task involving any device capable of producing an arc flash and requires the worker to wear the appropriate ARC rated protection.

Some of us here at ML Kishigo are big fans of the hit show Parks and Recreation. So imagine our surprise when we saw our 1193 vest being worn by characters Leslie Knope and April Ludgate on last Thursday’s episode!

NBC posted a gallery to their Parks & Rec page of the girls sporting our product on the scene of their trash-truckin’ adventure. But we thought they model our best selling vest so well that we shared the photos in an album on our facebook page as well.