Foam Is Better Than Water Essay

Superior Essays
“Why Is Foam More Effective Than Water When Fighting Fire?” As time passes, new technology and procedures come out to enhance safety and make things more effective to provide the greatest convenience for humans. Using foam to fight fire is one of many new and ingenious technologies to do so for the firefighter. There are many new things that are coming out to ensure that all first response personnel are ready for what they face. Foam is the next big leap to safer and efficient firefighting tactics. Class A foam and Compressed Air Foam Systems are much more effective than using water to fight fire. Safety is one of the most beneficial things that an occupant gets from using foam. Using foam has many plus sides instead of using water, and …show more content…
It works much better when putting out the fire it chokes it out more efficiently than water and that is very important. In Sherry Long 's article, it states that applying foam to the fire it works as a retardant and can knock down flames much sooner, therefore if the fire gets put out sooner than less property is burned which is the main point to firefighting. The more that can be saved is the main goal and when using foam firefighters can accomplish this goal much better than using water. In addition to foam putting the fire out faster to mitigate property damage, in some cases when a homeowner has a fire the biggest problem they face afterwards is clean up. When using water to fight fire it leaves an extensive amount of water damage to the structure etc. While using CAFS or Class A foam it leaves less of an impact on property damage and even puts the fire out more efficiently. When the foam is applied to an object it uses much less water and all foam bubbles of carbon given time would pop and leave slim to none damage compared to water. (Long) Many in this case would call using foam a “win,win” over using water and traditional practices. After the home owner has a fire they last thing they want to do is spend hundreds or more dollars to get the water damage fixed when that hundreds of dollars could be saved if the firefighters use …show more content…
When using foam over water it increased what the firefighter can do by 200-300% or 2-3 times then what they could do before. Is there a “to expensive” when it comes to safety of people, Foam concentrate itself costs more than when just using water running from about $12-15 per gallon of solution which when in the truck it is diluted down with water. What can really be stressed is the cost is not to much if it involves the opportunity to save lives or put the fire out faster (Klassen). So yes, there is a price tag that is not nominal to using foam over water but fire departments that are taking the advantages of using foam, they are not using foam at every fire only when it is needed. For all these reasons it makes the expense worth it to install foam and use it instead of water. So they will be able to make sure that they can do the best that they can do with the equipment they

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel that takes place in the far future. In this novel, the citizens of the society are “mindless sheep” because they are unable to think for themselves. The government is totalitarian and aims to control the minds of everyone in the society. The government suppresses everyone’s ability to think, by banning books. The leaders force the citizens to move fast at all times so, they are kept unaware of their surroundings.…

    • 1101 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One unfortunate aspect of the fire service generally unheard in the public eye is that of a firefighter arsonist. This long-standing problem that impacts fire departments and communities across the…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Guy Montag surroundings in the novel Fahrenheit 451 affect the character in ways which he questions, rebels and seeks a better way of life in this dystopian civilization he lives in; therefore illuminates the theme of knowledge versus ignorance. Which influences his life as much as fate, destiny or any supernatural agency as Pauline Hopkins says. Society’s ways are different, firemen do not put out fires but they cause them by burning books and then fill new books up with false information. Examples would be where it reads, “Established in 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin.”…

    • 439 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Attention was brought to this because of the worsening climate conditions in CA making for better odds of a wildfire. The state has been in a bad drought lately and that only increases the odds of a wildfire to start. The inmates in the program are housed in a one of 43 camps with a few correctional guards. When it comes time to actually fight a fire, they are watched only by an unarmed CalFire captain. Even then, the captains are asking for tools from the inmates and can’t exactly keep a close watch on them.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Buildings were not required to have sprinkler systems and only 54 buildings in the city were fireproofed. Combining the highly combustible construction, buildings densely packed close together and narrow streets allowed the fires to spread quickly. The fire department used dynamite attempting to create fire breaks, due to an inefficient supply of water, but only contributed by creating additional fires. San Francisco was not prepared for the catastrophic event. Within days 100,000 residents refused to leave the city bringing their belongings to parks, vacant lots, and beachfront.…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The fire problem in the United States can be summarized as follows. The United States has the highest fire rate in the industrialized world. Each year more Americans are killed by smoke inhalation from fire than all other natural disasters, including floods, hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes. Furthermore, the nation does not place enough emphasis on fire safety education, inspection, and code enforcement. Finally, the important areas such as firefighting, built in fire protection features in structures and fire prevention are neglected.…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Smoke inhalation is what kills the majority of fire victims due to asphyxiation and there have many reports where fire related deaths where the victims were found far away from the actual fire. Smoke also contributes to property damage far from the seat of the fire. So the addition of a smoke management system that along with the automated fire suppression system will not only help reduce fire casualties but will also aid in firefighting actives was developed. One of the biggest fires where if a smoke management systems was in place could have saved numerous lives was the fire that broke out in November 1980 in a casino in Nevada, while the fire was contained to the lower levels smoke rose and spread rapidly through the buildings HVAC system. 80 people perished this day and most of them from smoke inhalation and they were on the upper levels away far away from the fire…

    • 1629 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Fire retardants are key components to reduce the risk of fire on people, property, and environment. Fire retardant can play a big rule in fire safety. Fire retardants are some different chemicals with different properties and structures act as a fire retardant materials. Also, fire retardant materials are added to different materials or as a treatment to some materials. Fire retardant materials are used to prevent the fire from starting or to limit the spread of fire or to delay the time to flashover.…

    • 121 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Grand Teton Concrete - Ryan spent the day working on forming Building A's stem walls. He also had a few guys work on stripping and cleaning up the site around building B. We are shooting to pour the Stem walls on Building A on Thursday. Advanced Insulation - Chris's guys delivered 80 sheets of 2"x4'x8' ridged foam that is going to be used to insulate the stem walls.…

    • 87 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Why Should Firemen Be Emt

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Why should firemen be EMT’S A Lot of people think all firemen do is sleep and watch TV, There not wrong we do sleep and Watch TV after all our training and clean the station is done. There is a lot of stuff that we do that people don’t know and its behind the scene. Firemen have to Be physically fit to do our job. We are constantly training to stay in shape we train to learn the new technology for our job or new ways to fight fires.…

    • 338 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    1911 Fire

    • 84 Words
    • 1 Pages

    If this happened today, this fire would be stopped in an instant because, we have fire trucks, fire hydrants, and we don't have our houses made of easily flammable things anymore…

    • 84 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chicago Fire Analysis

    • 1515 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In the mid-1850s, Chicago became a major city thanks to the newly constructed interstate railroad system that connected the United States, thus causing the once small city of 100,000 people to grow to over a million within 30 years. Due to such rapid expansion, structures appeared with little permits and regulation, causing inconsistencies in the housing quality for decades well into the future. The city became constructed out of wood since the material because it was a quick, easy and cheap resource. Architects before the 1870s served to add embellishments to buildings, not give strength to the building’s floors and ceilings. There the rapid growth also prevented zoning regulation, the lack of rules allowed for houses and businesses to be…

    • 1515 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fire Code Research Paper

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages

    However, when a fire happened and burned the heat source inside the building, it would continue to consume the structural materials, such as timber, concrete, and steel, depending on what type of the structural system of the building. Wood forms a self-insulating char layer provided protection for the unburned portion. This slow-burning characteristic is a significant advantage for timber to construct a fire-safe building. When wood members exposed to high level of temperature occurs in building fires, they tend not to expand visibly and remain a substantial amount of…

    • 380 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Firefighters-from career veterans with twenty or more years, to volunteers with only a few months under their belts-go through intense, rigorous, and extremely important training. What could happen if firefighters just did the minimum amount of training required and that was all they trained? THE DENVER DRILL On 28 September 1992, in Denver Colorado, a three-alarm fire broke out.…

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    My topic is about on fire prevention and on how firefighting technology could serve better on preventing and predicting future fires that can cause harm to the surrounding area. This topic is very important because not only it involves safety to people, but also structures. Saving lives when a fire occurs is the main priority for a firefighter, but also the occurring fire that is taking place in hand is also a priority because we do not want that fire to spread and cause more damage and even take potential lives. Also, keeping buildings save from fire is an important issue because so many people work in them such as offices, skyscrapers, and restaurants. By law buildings need to be fire safe and fire preventable, there are certain codes to…

    • 1449 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays

Related Topics