• Wool fiber is unusually resilient, flame-resistant and absorbent.macro striped wool image by green308 from Fotolia.com
  
  The history of wool production dates back thousands of years to the Stone Age, and production statistics attest to the continuing popularity of wool. As of 2009, there were 82,000 wool-producing sheep farms in the United States. Besides being aesthetically pleasing and comfortable, wool is also a resilient, absorbent textile. Unlike many untreated fibers, it is also highly flame-resistant.
  
  

Absorbency

• Wool has the potential to soak up 30% of its weight in moisture without ever seeming overly moist or damp. This characteristic makes wool an odd fiber, in the sense that it can be comfortable in both warm and cold weather. The sweat produced by hot weather is quickly absorbed into wool fiber, and moisture in the form of a gentle rain or snowfall is just as easily soaked up. In this sense, wool enhances the cooling and warming mechanisms of the human body by keeping moisture, in various forms, away from the skin of the garment wearer.
  
  

Flame-Resistance

• The moisture-retaining properties of wool fiber are exactly what makes the fiber largely flame-retardant. Wool does not combust; it will char and extinguish itself when exposed to fire. No artificial or chemical processes need to be applied to wool to make it fire-proof, as each individual fiber within a wool product is laden with moisture. It is for this reason that small fires are often put out with wool blankets.
  
  

Resilience

• The resilience of wool fiber is surprising. According to the American Sheep Industry Association, a wool garment or blanket can be pulled up to 50% of its original length when wet, and up to 30% of its original length when dry, but will return to its original dimension when the stretching ceases. The return of stretched wool to its original dimensions is hastened by humidity, which is why steam irons are recommended for pressing wool.
  
  This resiliency and elasticity of wool fiber also lends itself to less wrinkling and more abrasion resistance.