Fire Curtains and Thermal Barriers Manufactured by Amatex Corporation

Product Description

Fire curtains and thermal barriers were essential industrial safety components deployed throughout American manufacturing facilities, foundries, steel mills, shipyards, and heavy industrial plants during much of the twentieth century. These products were designed to compartmentalize heat, contain flame spread, and protect adjacent work areas and personnel from radiant heat and airborne sparks during high-temperature industrial operations such as welding, cutting, casting, and smelting.

Amatex Corporation, headquartered in Norristown, Pennsylvania, was one of the country’s prominent specialty textile manufacturers focused on high-performance industrial fabrics. The company developed and produced a broad range of woven and fabricated textile products engineered specifically to withstand extreme thermal conditions. Fire curtains and thermal barriers represented a significant segment of Amatex’s industrial product line, marketed to industries where heat containment and flame resistance were operational necessities rather than optional features.

These curtains were typically hung on tracks or suspended from overhead structures to create movable or semi-permanent barriers within industrial spaces. Thermal barrier materials were also fabricated into blankets, pads, wraps, and panel inserts used to protect equipment, pipes, valves, and structural components from heat damage. Because of their perceived effectiveness in high-temperature environments, these products were widely adopted across multiple industries throughout the mid-twentieth century.

Asbestos Content

Amatex Corporation incorporated asbestos fibers into its fire curtains and thermal barrier products as a primary functional ingredient. Asbestos was selected for these applications because of its well-documented physical properties: it is naturally non-combustible, highly resistant to thermal degradation, and capable of withstanding sustained exposure to temperatures that would destroy conventional textile fibers.

Amatex was known within the specialty textiles industry for its expertise in asbestos fiber processing and weaving. The company manufactured woven asbestos fabrics that formed the structural substrate of its fire curtains and thermal barriers. Chrysotile asbestos — the most commercially prevalent form — was commonly used in these woven textile products, though other asbestos varieties were also processed by specialty textile manufacturers of this era. The resulting fabrics were tightly woven to provide mechanical integrity while retaining the heat-resistant properties that made asbestos commercially attractive for these applications.

In addition to the base woven material, asbestos fibers were sometimes incorporated into coatings, fillers, or reinforcement layers applied to the curtain fabric to enhance thermal performance or extend service life. The finished products could therefore contain asbestos not only in the woven substrate but also in secondary material layers, meaning that damage, cutting, or deterioration of any component of the product could release asbestos fibers.

The Amatex Corporation Asbestos Settlement Trust, established as part of Amatex’s resolution of asbestos liability, recognizes fire curtains, thermal barriers, and related woven asbestos textile products as eligible product categories for claim filing purposes.

How Workers Were Exposed

Workers interacted with Amatex fire curtains and thermal barriers across a wide spectrum of industrial settings, and exposure to asbestos fibers occurred through multiple pathways during both routine use and maintenance activities.

Installation workers who hung, positioned, and secured fire curtains in foundries, mills, and manufacturing plants handled the raw fabric directly, often cutting curtains to fit specific openings or configurations. Cutting woven asbestos fabric releases respirable asbestos fibers into the breathing zone of the worker performing the cut and potentially those working nearby.

Industrial workers generally — a broad category that encompasses production workers, machine operators, maintenance personnel, and others who worked in proximity to installed fire curtains and thermal barriers — faced ongoing background exposure. Woven asbestos textiles are not inert once installed. Over time, mechanical abrasion from contact, vibration from nearby machinery, and general deterioration of the fabric cause asbestos fibers to shed. Workers in enclosed or poorly ventilated industrial environments could inhale these released fibers continuously throughout their working lives without being aware that any exposure was occurring.

Maintenance and repair workers faced particularly significant exposure events. When fire curtains required inspection, repositioning, replacement, or repair, workers handled aged and often friable fabric that had become more prone to fiber release than when new. Removing deteriorated curtains from overhead tracks or folding worn thermal blankets for disposal could generate visible clouds of dust containing asbestos fibers.

Welders, cutters, and foundry workers who operated near fire curtains were also exposed to fibers released by the heat of nearby operations — a circumstance that underscores the particular hazard of heat-resistant asbestos textiles, which were often used in the very environments most likely to accelerate their degradation.

Litigation records document that workers in these settings were typically not informed by employers or product manufacturers that the materials surrounding their workstations contained asbestos, and that prolonged inhalation of asbestos fibers is associated with serious and potentially fatal diseases including mesothelioma, asbestosis, and lung cancer.