By Dave Wedge
The Boston Herald

BOSTON — Firefighters in Boston — where two jakes died in a West Roxbury restaurant blaze Aug. 29 — are wearing outdated, worn jackets or being outfitted with low-cost gear that does not meet federally accepted standards, the Herald has learned.

While there is no evidence that substandard gear contributed to the deaths of firefighters Paul Cahill and Warren Payne in the Tai Ho restaurant fire, some high-ranking fire officials have expressed serious concerns about the quality of gear being handed out to Hub first responders.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino's spokeswoman Dot Joyce said the mayor is "concerned" that firefighters may be wearing gear not up to National Fire Protection Association muster, but would "defer" to the department on equipment issues.

However, across the Charles River in Cambridge, Fire Chief Gerald Reardon, whose department uses jackets and pants with a higher fire safety rating than the Boston outfits, said flatly: "I would not have purchased anything that did not meet the NFPA standard."

Since the early 1990s, Boston firefighters have been outfitted in NFPA-approved gear made by British manufacturer Bristol. But after 10 Boston firefighters died from job-related heart attacks in 2000, the department decided to sacrifice fire protection in favor of more lightweight gear and went with suits made by Denmark-based Viking. Those outfits, now being handed out to Boston’s 1,500 firefighters, meet European standards but not the more stringent NFPA requirements.

The Viking gear was chosen over suits made by Bristol and Morning Pride, an Ohio-based company that makes suits bulkier than Viking but with a higher fire protection rating. Morning Pride gear is used in Cambridge, Chelsea, Winthrop and Brockton, as well as in other major departments, including New York and Los Angeles.

Reardon said his 274-member department went with the $2,300 Morning Pride suits "to get the thermal protection and breathability as high as possible."

"But you have to meet the minimum standards. It's a balancing game," he said.

Boston's fire suits, by comparison, cost $980, according to Boston Fire spokesman Steve MacDonald.

In a 2002 BFD study recommending lighter-weight gear, former Fire Commissioner Paul Christian downplayed fire dangers.

"Heart attacks are what are killing us, not burns," Christian wrote in the report. "How many firefighters are we willing to sacrifice with heart attacks in order to save one from fatal burns?"

But concerns over the Viking suits reach all the way to the top of the BFD command staff, where one top official said: "Absolutely there’s a lot better, more lightweight gear out there."

Some firefighters still only have the Bristol gear, which is up to 15 years old and in many cases, worn from repeated use and washing, another department source said.

City Councilor Stephen Murphy, chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said, "I don't know why we would buy something that doesn't meet the NFPA standard. That seems ludicrous."

MacDonald declined comment on the type of gear Cahill and Payne may have been wearing, but stood by the Viking suits.

"We're always looking to improve the equipment we have, but we have not had complaints about the Viking gear. We know it offers the protection they need," he said.

Viking officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Copyright 2007 Boston Herald Inc.