Around the world hundreds of thousands of employees work with the potential of a flash fire hazard. A majority of these employees companies have implemented some sort of flame resistant clothing program spanning back over the past 30 years. Even as recent as the past 6 years new industry standards have been developed along with improved fabrics to meet these standards.

　　In 2000, a break through standard was developed call NFPA 2112; Standard on Flame-Resistant Garments for Protection of Industrial Personnel Against Flash Fire. NFPA 2112 became one of the first standards to provide minimum performance criteria for flame resistant fabrics and guidelines for testing on instrumented thermal manikins. The guidelines of NFPA 2112 call for testing manikin testing per ASTM F1930; Standard Test Method for Evaluation of Flame Resistant Clothing for Protection Against Flash Fire Simulations Using an Instrumented Manikin. NFPA 2112 calls for testing to be conducted at 3 seconds with a pass/fail rate of 50% under the testing protocols set in ASTM F1930. These are the first real guidelines and criteria created by the industry to better understand and compare the protective performance of flame resistant fabrics.