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Water Extinguishers... Do you put a little AFFF in them?
Anyone out there ever consider putting a little AFFF in their water extinguisher when you refill them and charge them with air? Personnally, I think it's not a bad idea... I am also suggesting using 1-cup of AFFF to the extinguisher. Any thoughts?
TCSS,
CBz
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Capt.Alex Arnold on
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I do! It is a great little addition to the old water can. The "Caps Can" (has my guys call it) is my favorite tool. You can use it for so many things. Foam just adds to its abilities.
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Permalink Reply by Rusty Mancini on
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As a matter or fact, just the other day we were called out for a car fire, and after what we thought we had extinguish, the tire caught back up. This took place after the driver of the engine had backed out of a tight placement. The driver had asked me if I wanted the engine back in there to finish off the tire?
I told him no, that I would use the water can, and he said the water can?? To his surprise the can had done the job! It was the foam that we add to the can after each use, that help put out the remaining fire.
Great topic Capt. it works well!!
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Permalink Reply by Oldman on
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We put a little Palmolive dish soap in ours. I asked the company rep who does the annual inspections on our extinguishers about adding a little class A, and was told most foams are not recommended for the internal parts of water cans. Haven't thought about AFFF though.
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Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on
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AFFF is a little to expensive for us, so we use just a little dish soap in the can after the water but before pressurizing it with air. The dish soap increases the cooling effect of the water by sticking to whatever is on fire a little longer and not just running off like regular water. It has proved very effective for us.
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Permalink Reply by Roy Walker on
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We've done it for years and have yet to have a problem with any of our cans. We figure if it does it's just a cost of doing business. The good results we've seen using this method has been well worth the effort.A thumb over the nozzle helps the airation
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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This totally makes sense Shareef. Both AFFF and soap are both surfactants that break down the surface tension of the water, basically, making the water wetter... This provides deeper water / foam penetration and absorption, as well as providing a visual verification where you have placed the foam / soap suds... Doing more with less... must be a bunch of firefighters... lol
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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We've been doing it (class A foam) as long as I've been around. Water can goes on most smell of smoke/something burning/electrical investigations.
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Permalink Reply by Tony P on
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We rarely use water extinguishers. I've never heard of foam consentrate (either A or B) being used in them. Wetting Agent or A Class in a knapsack spray (an Indian) yes.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Armstrong on
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We've been doing it for years also never had an internal breakdown of the extinguisher.Works great for the little fires and flare-ups after you've pack everything up.By al means go for it from our experiences and by looks of others there's no worries of messing up your cans.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Montpetit on
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We have been doing this for years.....always had good results....
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Thanks Cap for the compliment. It always means alot coming from you.
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this is why I posted this, looking for something to discuss that did not have anything to do with helmet or fire apparatus color or word games... and something that is obvious to us old salts... thanks for contributing Paul.
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