Its a foaming agent. Whenever there is a fuel or oil fire we use a foaming agent which essentially covers and smothers the fire. Without oxygen the fire tetrahedron isn't complete. Essentially we are starving the fire. Why don't we use water? Have you ever tried to put out a grease/fuel fire with water? All you are doing is spreading the fire. Foam is your friend. That is a special nozzle with a built in agitator that gets a dry powder and mixes it with the water from the pumper and them foams the shit out of it by the time it hits the nozzle. This can also be used in basement fire situations where it is too risky to send down crews; instead we "roll foam" into the lower level and just pump that shit in there until its out.
A fantastic explanation. Seems like a fucking mess and I would rather my house burn down than have a foam party in the basement the rest of my life
We have a lot of different extinguishers at the lab as well for that reason. We rarely use water because there's a lot of colleteral damage on the equipment (which can range into several hundreds of thousands dollars of damage).
Dry Powder / Chemical extinguishers are good for this. CO2 as well although CO2 can sometimes damage circuits etc because of the extreme cold causing contraction and sometimes popping connections.
not as fire extinguisher. it heats and spreads too quickly to deprive of oxygen or actually cool down the material.
In my electronics lab I only have CO2. Dry Powder/Chem vs Automotive fixtures? My fixtures lose! Also, anyone else get a huge nerd-broner for Mason when he goes all Teach on us? (only mild homo)
Same here, but on board ship we used PK powder, Halon systems, and foam depending on the type of fire. A, B, C, or D
I believe we also had some 'fire-resistant sponges' (basically fire blankets that absorb liquids) but dry powder was easier to use so they're kinda dusting away in storage.
