EN Standards

EN Standards for Flame Retardant Clothing

All protective clothing needs to conform to certain safety standards to protect workers who are employed in a high risk or hazardous environment. Anyone who works in a high fire or flame risk situation, will need specialist clothing to keep them as safe as possible against a short flame contact and at least one type of heat (convective heat, radiant heat, contact heat, molten metal splashes).

EN Standards can be very confusing, so you need to know what to look for. The term fire retardant as applied to organic (i.e., containing carbon) materials, might be better being referred to as reduced fire hazard, as all will burn under certain circumstances. First of all, if you need specialist work clothing or protective clothing for those at risk, you need to go to look very carefully at what you are buying and who you are buying it from. Flame retardant clothing is a pretty niche market and you need to buy from someone who knows what they are talking about.

You will see all sorts of symbols and codes written on labels, so which is correct?  Well, the answer to that is that a lot of them may be correct. As standards have changed. This does not mean that the old standard was incorrect, it simply means that the new standards will make clothing even safer.

Until recently the safety standard for Fireproof protective clothing was EN531. This has now been replaced by EN ISO 11612 – Protective Clothing for Heat and Flame.

So, what is the new standard for? Well EN ISO 11612 not only tests the fabric used to produce the clothing, it also tests the whole fireproof garment. This is to stop an influx of sub-standard flameproof protective clothing flooding the market.

The new standard will ensure that the wearer will have greater confidence that the specialist flameproof garment that he or she is wearing offers proper protection. Previously there was a real danger that some manufacturers were simply buying fabric that came up to EN 531 standards, but then making cheap clothing, by using non fireproof thread, fasteners and zips etc. This meant they were actually meeting the standards set, but the garment as a whole was not tested – just the fabric. The new standard EN ISO 11612 will ensure the whole garment is up to scratch.

Probably the most common symbol you will see is this:

EN-531 - Certified protective clothing of flame-proofed material.
Suitable for welders, industrial workwears, electricians etc. The EN531 Standard for Heat Protection has now been replaced by EN ISO 11612.

This new standard is targeted at the manufacturer, not the wearer, so this will only affect newly produced garments. Garments rated to EN 531 are still valid and can still be bought.

The table below shows the difference between the two standards.

EN 11612	EN531
Heat resistance	Dimensional change
Limited flame spread	Limited flame spread (A)
Dimensional change	Convective heat (B)
Tensile strength	Radiant heat  (C)
Tear strength	Molten aluminium splash (D)
Burst strength	Molten iron splash (E)
Seam strength
Convective heat (B)
Radiant heat (C)
Molten Aluminium splash (D)
Molten iron splash (E)
Contact heat (F)

Flame spread for EN11612 is tested both before and after laundry. The old standard used to test only the flame spread after 5 cycles, but with the new standard EN 11612 all of the tests are made after 5 laundry cycles. The new standard also tests clothing after every complete wash and dry – so for example after 100 washes, it will go through 100 dry cycles.

All flame retardant clothing has to conform to international testing standards before it can be offered in any marketplace. In addition to the main standard of BS EN ISO 11612, there are additional standards for fabrics and garments for workers exposed to heat and flame such as the new standards BS EN ISO 14116 and BS EN ISO 11611 for limited flame spread fabrics, but for finished garments within the oil and gas industry it is the BS EN ISO 11612 which is the most important.

One of the main objectives of the standard is to ensure that any worker caught in typical short duration flash fires suffer, in the worst case scenario, nothing worse than second degree burns to the areas protected by the garment. A second-degree burn is an injury from which the body can recover completely.

The standard is not concerned with clothing required by fire fighting personnel.

Of all of the fabrics currently available, they normally fall into one of two categories, which means that they will be either ‘Inherent’ or ‘Treated’.

Garments manufactured from Inherent fabrics will always retain their flame resistant properties regardless of how many launderings are applied to them.  So, providing the garment is deemed serviceable by the user, they should have the confidence that the garment will still afford the protection that they required when the garment was first purchased. Inherent garments are more costly in the first place, but are likely to be far more robust and therefore offer better value.

The majority of treated garments offered in the workplace are 100% cotton, which has been treated with a chemical that extinguishes flames on the fabric within less than two seconds.

The most important thing to remember when purchasing fire retardant clothing is to seek professional advice.

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