Chainsaw-protective clothing does not stop a chain the way a helmet stops a falling brick. Inside the garment are layers of long, loose fibres. If a moving chain contacts the fabric, those fibres are designed to pull out, wrap around the drive sprocket and jam the saw in a fraction of a second. The European standard that covers how this is tested is EN ISO 11393. Its markings tell you two separate things: where on the garment the protection is, and how fast a chain it was tested against. Neither of those tells you what you need. That comes from your own risk assessment of the cutting you actually do.
The two things a marking tells you
A chainsaw trouser label carries a protection type (a letter) and a design class (a number). They answer different questions.
Protection type: where the coverage is
- Type A – protection across the front of both legs and a set distance round each side. Designed for trained ground-based chainsaw operators using a saw in the expected way. This is the most common type for felling and processing on the ground.
- Type C – all-round protection, front and back of both legs. Heavier and warmer to wear. Generally specified where the operator may not be able to keep the saw in front of them, such as some arboricultural work aloft, or where a risk assessment calls for it.
There is also a Type B, which adds a little more coverage to the lower left leg than Type A, but Type A and Type C are the two you will see most often.
Design class: the chain speed tested against
The class number relates to the chain speed the garment was tested against. Higher class, higher tested speed.
| Class | Tested chain speed |
|---|---|
| Class 0 | 16 m/s |
| Class 1 | 20 m/s |
| Class 2 | 24 m/s |
| Class 3 | 28 m/s |
Class 1 is the most widely used level for general chainsaw work. Class 2 is specified where more powerful saws are in regular use. Class 0 and Class 3 exist for specific low- and high-speed cases and are less common. The class is about the test speed, not a blanket "better", and a higher-class garment is usually heavier and hotter, which has its own cost in fatigue and compliance.
Trousers, jackets, gloves and boots
EN ISO 11393 is a multi-part standard covering different garments:
- Leg protection – trousers and chaps, the part most people mean by "chainsaw protection".
- Upper body protection – jackets, mainly relevant to work where the guide bar can come near the torso, such as some aerial work.
- Protective gloves – with a protective back to the left hand.
- Protective footwear – boots with a chainsaw-protective zone over the front of the foot and lower leg.
Footwear may also be marked to ISO 17249, the specific standard for chainsaw-resistant boots, which has its own class scale for chain speed.
What protection clothing does not do
It is designed to reduce injury from a moving saw chain contacting the garment. It is not body armour, and it has limits:
- It can be defeated by a chain running at higher speed than the garment's class, or by certain angles and cut types.
- It does nothing for the hazards that actually cause most serious arb incidents: falls, being struck by material, and being hit by a kickback before the chain reaches the fabric.
- It is single-use in the area of a strike. Once the protective fibres have deployed, that part of the garment is spent.
When to take a garment out of service
Withdraw and check chainsaw-protective clothing against the manufacturer's guidance if it has taken a chain contact, a heavy snag, a deep cut through the outer layer, or contamination with oil or fuel that could affect the protective pack. Do not repair the protective area. Our guide to when workwear needs replacing covers the wider signs to watch for across PPE.
Where this sits with the other standards
Chainsaw protection is one of a family of workwear standards, each testing for one specific hazard. Our guide to reading EN standards on a workwear label puts them side by side, and the glove safety ratings guide covers hand protection markings in more detail.
The short version
On a chainsaw trouser label, the letter (A or C) tells you where the protection is, and the number (0 to 3) tells you the chain speed it was tested against. Class 1 Type A covers a lot of ground-based work; Type C and Class 2 step up coverage and tested speed for higher-risk tasks. But the label is a description of a test, not a recommendation. What you need comes from your own risk assessment, and once you know the type and class, we will match products to it precisely. See our tree surgeons' and arborists' workwear page for the full kit list.
