The continuous research and development regarding firefighters’ personal protective equipment (PPE) has led to significant improvements in recent decades. Despite the evolution of firefighters’ PPE, every year an undesirable number of firefighters are seriously burned during firefighting operations, with some of them eventually losing their lives. The protection given by firefighters’ PPE can be further increased with the incorporation of smart textiles in the personal protective equipment, namely, wearable electronics (i.e., integrated sensors to monitor diverse parameters: heart rate, oxygen saturation, carbon dioxide detector, and setting real-time communication with a command post) and advanced materials such as phase change materials (PCMs). The evolution of firefighters’ PPE has been followed by an evolution and update in the international and national standards that specify performance requirements for firefighters’ protective clothing for structural and wildland firefighting as well as technical rescue. This study will focus on the analysis of firefighters protective clothing evolution regarding the use and integration of advanced smart materials, namely, phase change materials, taking into consideration the evolution and requirements of international and European standards as well as national legislation for firefighters’ protective clothing.

Considering the high level of heat and flame exposure firefighters encounter while performing their work activities, personal protective equipment (PPE) is of the utmost importance to enhance their safety. Phase change materials (PCMs) are known as advanced materials able to absorb high amounts of thermal energy, with the potential to increase the thermal performance of protective clothing. In this work, a PCM-vest was developed for the first time, and its thermal performance was evaluated. A three-stage approach was followed: (1) at a small scale in the laboratory, the effect of different encapsulated PCMs on a multilayer assembly performance was evaluated; (2) in the laboratory, the essential requirements of heat and flame tests were assessed; and (3) in a simulated urban fire, the thermal performance of three different PCM-vests (different textiles and designs) was studied. As the main conclusions, the PCMs significantly affected the heating rate of the multilayer assembly, particularly when a PCM with higher latent heat was used. In some cases, the heat transfer index (HTI) doubled by comparison with the sample without PCMs. As a drawback and as expected, the cooling time was increased. The PCM-vest sample ensured the requirements of the heat and flame tests. Through this study, the positive impact of using PCMs to enhance the heat protection of conventional PPE can be highlighted.