ARLINGTON, Virginia, United States, 18 March 2021: The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) released results of a project undertaken in cooperation with UL and the Firefighter Safety Research Institute (FSRI) in which refrigerants classified by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) as A2L (lower flammability) were tested and compared with A1 (no flame-spread) refrigerants in real-world situations. The effort, AHRI said, was undertaken to develop training programs for firefighting personnel when responding to fires in occupancies with both new (A2L) and existing (A1) refrigerants.

The project included scenarios designed by fire service professionals to develop training for tactical consideration to demonstrate hazards that may be encountered by the fire service for both A1 and A2L refrigerants, AHRI said. “We are grateful to the UL employees and members of the fire service that committed significant time in the development and execution of this project and in preparing reports to ensure that they are both accurate and helpful to firefighters,” said Helen Walter-Terrinoni, AHRI Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. Since industry started pursuing a phasedown of higher-global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants over 10 years ago, more than USD 7 million has been invested in research to better understand the lower-GWP refrigerants that will replace them, AHRI said.

The FSRI training module, which incorporates videos from the project, AHRI said, will soon be released and available free-of-charge on its website