Firefighter air Vs Scuba Air

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Mike Klieb

Contributor
Messages
132
Reaction score
79
Location
Deer Park Tx
# of dives
500 - 999
I know this my seem like a stupid question and I'm pretty sure I know the answer but I'm going to ask anyway. Is there any difference in the air other than the connection to the tank?
 
Their's no difference except of course the physical characteristics of the cylinders and the connections. Both are compressed air (21%). Firefighters dont fill up Nitrox. I'v heard of guys filling up their scuba cylinders at fire stations when dive shops are far away. Not sur about that one though. I dont do that at my department.
 
I did it for years. As long as the FD air is tested and Grade E, you're good to go. I just had to get an adapter for my tanks
 
I did it for years. As long as the FD air is tested and Grade E, you're good to go. I just had to get an adapter for my tanks

What adapter did you have to buy or is it something that you made so that you could make the connection?
.
 
SCBA to SCUBA Yoke or DIN adapter. It was available online, don't remember the source though.
 
My son is a firefighter and he said if it was the same I could fill my tanks there. so I figured I would do that because its closer than the dive shop.
 
One thing to be aware of is that firefighters can get away with more contamination than divers can because they're always at 1ATA. If there's a negligible-at-the-surface amount of CO in the system, the partial pressure of CO at depth could mess up your day. So make sure they test the air regularly!
 
Funny you mention that, some of the dive shops here fill the firefighters tanks.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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