One of our rookies was issued USAR gear pants and he wore it for a couple of months. He even wore it in a small fire. We have a heavy rescue station that was issued USAR gear from a grant and SOMEHOW two sets of the gear were put into the spare gear locker and issued to the kid by mistake. The Rookie has never had any contact with USAR gear and all he knew was that it was light weight. BTW, the gear was ordered in the same color and with the same reflective stripes as our issued bunker gear. Several people have said, " he should have known that this wasn't supposed to be worn in fires" but in the rookies defense" you don't know what you don't know". Our fire Department is a department of 237 and we have gone through several rounds of budget cuts over the years. We have a severe lack of oversight due to a lack of personnel. To the departments credit the gear was removed as soon as it was discovered. We got lucky on this one, this kid could have suffered severe burns to his legs wearing these pants.

Lessons Learned: We need better accountability from our admin.