antiquefirelt

Last week around the table we we're talking about the efficacy of using a similar product (Bernzomatic Cold Coat) that I'd bought at Home Depot and used while sweating pipes with a torch in tight places. For the relatively low price of the small bottle it seemed like sooner or later it would be marketed as home protection from wildfires. That was damn quick! Guess I missed my chance at a patent. I think I like the powered sprayer, the little hand bottles would getting tedious after a bit.

Could be why the Chief was talking about the price increase? Either a 2012 expectation or switching to a Chevy or Dodge which both are more money to start with.

Coincidentally, we met with the Chief and a B/C from our capital city FD this morning so they could look over a couple of our apparatus. They noted their next ambulances would be gasoline engines, given the sharp cost increase of the newer diesel engines to meet emmission standards. They run E-series buses and their builder reported about a $15k difference. They turn the trucks over quick enough to not worry about high mileage and many years. Given the numerous issues we've had with Ford diesels in the past decade, I wondering why we didn't look into this more. I do know our spec committee found the savings was minimal on the 2011 F-series chassis we're getting this winter.

And who requires you to follow KKK specs? And di you actually follow it to the "T"? The same KKK that requires all ambulances be white and have orange striping? But I guess, like so many other standards, we pick and choose which parts we want to apply to us, and which shouldn't?

Was in Georgetown this past Monday, thought that pic looked like it could have been there, possibly Dupont Circle too?

As others have pointed out, this is likely a stairwell space. With storefronts that take up all of the first floor on either side, there's good chance that they needed a secondary means of egress (rear stairs as the primary)from the upper floors. Generally codes do not allow other businesses or residential occupancies to have their means of egress through another occupancy, necessitating the "outside" stair. We have a few similar "shared stairwells" that two buildings share between them, specifically for this purpose.

Wouldn't that be nice! A very functional position that's been decimated in so much of the fire service.

Nice! BTW, how long has Brendan Collins been Chief?

You mean how will people report fires, when hardline phones, cell phones and texting fail? Our F/A system was failing on a far more regular basis than any one, nevermind three of those systems. Ultimately it was the taxpayers choice: continue to pay for the system or rely more heavily on new technology, understanding that a total infrastructure collapse which could occur, however unlikely, might allow fires or other emergencies to be difficult to report. On the other hand, frequent system failures that took a few elderly housing complexes or hotels offline posed a huge liability to our City's Attorney and insurance carriers.

Our City finally pulled the final plug last week on our City Box system. While there seems to be some potential, given the ever increasing maintenance of the system, and the fact that the last actual reported emergency from a street box was 10+ years ago, they determined to require private alarm monitoring of required systems and discontinuance. I can see the reasons to keep them in larger urban areas where there's a fire alarm division, but in a small municipality that can't afford a F/A Div and uses trained firefighter to do much of the work, this is a blessing.

You have to be careful using the figures in the trade rags as you cannot tell what amount of equipment is included in the costs. Many other factors make significant cost differences. The only way to be certain is to see the bid docs from the same purchase process. Portland Maine's newest engine was a pretty standard city engine purchased from their 2-3 year exclusive Seagrave contract for a mere $650k! Who knows what other costs were figured in, possibly extensive service agreements, etc? It just seems like an awful lot for a basic engine. Nice equipment? No doubt. I still doubt they can compete with most others on any regular basis. Maybe they've realized that's what they need to do to stay in business?

I must agree. When we first switched to high pressure SCBA, we concverted our old Scott 2.2's to 4.5's. BTW the high pressure 4500 psi adds no more time, only volume adds time. But, the 4500 psi config allows longer duration bottles int eh same relative size range of the low pressure units. Anyway, we soon purchased a handful of 60 minute higher pressure CF bottles for our haz-mat ops. Our Chief at the time was impressed that the new 60's were lighter and about the same size as the old 30 minute LP ones, so he made all the officers seat SCBA's install a 60 minute bottle. His idea was that we could stay in longer as we were not as physically tasked as the firefighters on the crew. Needless to say, some of us must have exceeded his expectation of work as officers? Not to mention trying to maintain crew integrity when your crew need to swap a cylinder and take a blow and you stay inside? Thankfully we got this change tactfully and quickly. Maybe it was just a test to see if we were all "Yes men"? He had a habit of testing people to see what they knew and if they dared to object, to test their mettle.

Good stuff and very relevant and all too true. So many of our newer personnel can tell you what they are supposed to do, but have no background to know why. If you don't know the why, you can't know he why not, and so much of what we do is based on limited data that it's important to understand the why, to ensure the intended outcome can be arrived at. I think we can liken this to cookbook medics vs. well trained/educated medics. While the protocols cover your butt, your actual knowledge makes the difference. Sadly at the admin level we fear the knowledge and pray for protocol.

We still are running a few like this. All our bottles are CF, but maybe 10-15% of the SCBA still are wire frame jobs, kept alive by our Scott techs. Most of the guys can't understand why we have them, but some of us have done all we can to keep them.

I guess to save any confusion I'll say I favor smoothbores for most fire attack applications, while knowing the fog is a better choice in a few circumstances. But, to fair, we must address some of the issues that cause us to "misspeak" about either type of nozzle tip. In many recent test from around the country, in head to head comparison the fog either equals the SB or exceeds it in reach. Now this doesn't include loss of actual water due to heat or wind, but just straight up, matching gpm for gpm, they are fairly well matched. Again, in a typical non commercial structure fire the reach differences will not be a factor. EFFDCAPT: I can only surmise the reason so many fog nozzles continue to see frontline use is that those people making the key decisions of today came up during those years that we used smaller 1.5" lines with fogs flowing less than 100 gpm (thought we had more!) and literally pushed the fire from the unburned to the burned side and out windows and doors. At the same time we were shown how the fog nozzle could be opened to keep cool air coming in from behind to reduce the heat we felt, and to help push the heat, fire and smoke away from us. Houses we not nearly as tight so the effects of fog and steam were not felt as soon as in today's ultra energy efficient homes/buildings. So of our older guys started just as SCBA were coming out and went from no SCBA, thin bunkers and boots, rubber gloves and armed with smoothbore to fully dressed out in bunker gear, with an SCBA and a fog nozzle and were able to get all the way to the seat of the fire that they would have previously knocked down from the hall. They were sold that this was the only way to go. Today we can readily see and scientifically show the effects of energy efficient structures, fire and how a fog pattern vs. smoothbore changes the environment for us and any would be victims. Just because smoothbores were around before fog, doesn't mean they weren't the best choice all along. One must really separate the BS reasons from the real ones to have valid debate. To me it comes down to the size of the droplets. Andy Fredricks was showing us this in terms everyone could understand before he was taken along with 342 more of our Brothers.

OK, I'd like to hear how this is done, short of applying an indirect attack. I think we've all, or most, come to the realization that gpm puts out the fire, not psi. In most interior work the difference in streams is low on the list of which actually puts out more fire, while in fact the firefighter controlling the nozzle will have far more to do with it. Ever seen American Pie? Some firefighters are like the kid and the exchange student, over before they start, while others could star in a movie for more mature audiences. OK, I'll bite here. For the sake of discussion let's hear how the fog pattern protects you from heat? I'd add that many new fog nozzles have the capability of being preset from the factory with lower nozzle pressures for their intended flows. For instance, you can buy a 175 gpm @50 psi fog nozzle now, countering at least a few of the arguments smoothbore fans have touted for years.

I must amend my statement above. It appears that the Minitor IV's work on some narrowband freq's well, and not so well on others. Our dispatch freq just changed to another narrowband freq that the fourth digit is a 5 not a 0, thus the Minitor IV won't accept the freq and must be programmed slightly off band, causing some audio loss(10-20%). Our old freq which was narrowband but had a 0 as the fourth digit worked fine, I suspect that any narrowband that falls on a zero is like a non-narrowband frequency? My knowledge is very limited on the topic. All I know is what works and doesn't work in the field in my area.

I will add two items that seem to almost be becoming FS myths. #1: Smoothbores flow more water. Inaccurate. You can get just as much flow from a fog nozzle. Trust me, the manufactures make them and sell them everyday at a significant price. #2: Smooothbores will reduce the reaction force on the aerial. Again, inaccurate. The reaction force is, not as some would report, less on a smoothbore than a fog. At 100 gpm the two nozzle types exhibit (mathmatically) reaction force within 3 lbs or each other. Part of this is due to the higher nozzle pressure required for SB master streams than handline nozzles (80 psi vs. 50). I have seen one pretty good argument about why some FD's use fog nozzles on their TL's and deck pipes, relative to the types of buildings they're fighting fires in and using the fog guns as exposure protection. One must be careful with a smoothbore not to peel siding away, while the fog can easily be adjusted to ensure this doesn't happen, while still flowing a higher volume. In this case, the more effective use of the heat absorbing properties of water to keep the exposure cool may be readily realized with the fog? As I have no true experience utilizing our master streams with fogs, I have no actual frame of reference, but theoretically this has merit, and in some well respected FD's this has been SOP for some time. So if you're first due area has a boatload of tightly packed frame buildings you might consider which way is more important on arrival: exposure protection or boring into the seat of a fire in a defensive mode?

Our department has used smoothbores for all master streams for quite a while. The basic reason is that when we go to the large streams we anticipate a heavy volume of fire with significant heat and a need for the nozzle to be typically further away from the seat. Fog streams, even in the most compact straight settings, contain far more surface area for the heat to convert the water to steam carrying it up and away. By using the solid stream we try and maximize the amount of water that leaves the nozzle also hits the fire. Larger drops evaporate slower and are less affected by thermal columns and wind. We also carry fog tips for all master streams for vapor cloud mitigation and for suppressing fire brands, though I've yet to see the latter done in last 16 years.

Interesting, I think I remember the CAFS article from Fire Chief. Of course like any article targeting a specific group, it fails to address some of the concerns with wholesale changes to CAFS. 1. Expense: Maybe the "powers that be" might need to know the increase cost in outfitting each engine with CAFS, training personnel, and maintaining the stock of foam. Water is plentiful and cheap in comparison in a significant portion of where the US population lives. 2. Manpower reductions is cited as a reason the FS may not be embracing CAFS. This may be true in part as some FD's and Chief's fail to properly articulate the true manpower needs of any fireground. Our tasks do not change with CAFS. At best the time to complete the confinement, extinguishment and overhaul is reduced, but forcible entry, rescue, search, ventilation, RIT and everything else still remain relatively unchanged as far as manpower needs. Not to mention that just because the hoseline is lighter, does not mean it takes less personnel to make an effective stretch. Stretching to eh front door is the easy part, it's the constant fighting of corners, stairs and obstacles that require firefighters to keep the line advancing. No amount of magic bubbles is going to change how may of us it takes to get the nozzle to an effective position to apply any suppression agent. 3. The technology may not be "there yet". We still hear far too many issues with CAFS systems being finicky, problematic, overly electronic reliant, and far more complex than a typical pump with or without a straight foam system. A "one button" system is great when it all works well, but it's because there's some electronic control device that's doing 15 other things for you, if you don['t know how to override them or make them work you destined for a mishap. Sure some large FD's are using CAFS successfully, but for all of them, there's many other who aren't. I'm sure there's plenty who think they're doing great but are not, just as we see with the rest of the water extinguishment FD's. Hopefully ICMA will allow a rebuttal or at least an article written that describes some of the realities of CAFS, given they're currently just reading what they want to hear, less cost.

Something like that. Is it not counter intuitive that when you make the water sit on top of the surface longer, it's still using the foam as a surface tension reducer? In the wildland application we make the water absorb faster, thus the surface tension reducing qualities are readily apparent.

I think one thing often overlooked by some when arguing over how many firefighters it takes to make a stretch is that after the hose makes two 90 degree corners, regardless of the weight, it's most often anchored tight there. It takes having enough personnel spread out properly on the line to facilitate an efficient stretch. While CAFS may reduce the weight of the line and even allow some places to stretch an 1.75" (more effective use of water?) when many of us would take the big line, the number of doorways, corners and stairwells will not change, thus our manpower needs are not reduced, and should not be compromised as a result of using a more efficient suppression agent.

Thanks, I can see now my terminology is part of the problem. Rather than say it increases the waters surface tension, I should have said that it that by making bubbles it increases the waters ability to fight gravity by clinging to the surface. While the foam solution may be acting as an actual surface tension reducer, the thickness of the finished foam created by adding compressed air allows it to remain on the surface and release as the heat breaks down the bubbles, this lets the water convert to vapor more efficiently than when it's absorbed into the material. This is still sort of the opposite of how many of us use class A foam for it's penetration properties in outdoor settings. At low concentration .1-.3% the A foam solution quickly is absorbed and nearly any sign of a foam blanket is non-existent. Bump up the concentration level and/or add more air and make a thicker finished foam that you can make cling to the vertical surfaces as a protective blanket.

Correct me if I'm wrong and I certainly agree about proper overhaul, but don't the users of CAFS use the foam/air injection to increase the surface tension? This is how they can reduce water damage. Fire control with CAFS, coupled proper "surgical" overhaul with a TIC, might be an excellent way to reduce any "damage" created by the FD. Though I still think they have a ways to go to make CAFS mainstream: prove equipment reliability, reduce costs and validate better training programs.

Again, we do not use CAFS here, but from what I do know, the use really doesn't include filling up anything with foam. The air entrained foam allows it to cling to surfaces, suppressing vapors and insulating the surface from greater heat build-up and reduces re-radiation of heat (a large factor in building temps to flashover levels). The reason for the reduction in water damage is that foam can act in two ways: #1 (low concentration)it can reduce the surface tension of water allowing it to absorb far more readily into whatever it touches (not waterproof) and #2 (higher concentration) it can add to the waters' surface tension allowing it to sit on top without absorbing as readily. These both can be demonstrated by adding a little foam to water and another container with a lot of foam and putting them on cardboard. The water with just a little will soak in fast and that with a lot will not absorb much at all. As I understand it, with CAFS the air helps you use less foam concentrate while still increasing the surface tension. On the other end, most of us who use Class A foam for any wildland stuff mix it at a very low concentration to get it to soak into the materials. Certainly, a user of CAFS can better explain this than my limited knowledge or correct me.