Matt Leonard from Montgomery County (MD) Fire Rescue Station 3 submitted this high vis idea!
Matt was going over the RIT pack and thought of all the important parts being dull black in color was not helping should we need to deploy in a mayday. Doing a RIT drill usually involves ‘blacking out’ your facepiece to make the drill difficult. Real world, even if you have to hold the line directly up to your face, you are most likely able to see through the dark and smoke with the help of flashlights.
His first though was to attach a flashlight to the end of the airline but that may make the airline get caught up on objects. Then Matt thought to simply wrap the air lines in reflective materials. Searching the internet, you can obtain the same reflective material that is on your bunker gear, but it’s much more expensive than the polyester material used in traffic vests. Since he was just testing this theory on his own dime, Matt bought 9’ of 2” wide green/silver reflective polyester.
The reflective material was wrapped in a corkscrew manor from one end of the air line to the other and held in place with vinyl Scotchlite. Even though the reflective material is only attached by only two pieces of reflective tape, it had minimal movement on the airline and ultimately stayed in place after working the air lines with a hand.
Matt hopes to test it out in the near future. If this intrigues you, we hope you conduct drills yourself to find out if this is a practical option. Or, if there are any other similar aftermarket practices out there, please share.