Stručni rad
Economy of firefighting foam concentrates, foams and mobile foam systems according to European standards
Aleksandar Regent
orcid.org/0000-0002-3561-7823
; TPI Teh-projekt Inženjering d.o.o.Rijeka, Hrvatska
Sažetak
European standards for foams, foam concentrate and foam systems have been in existence for many years. Because of their complexity, firefighting community and fire protection professionals do not know them well enough and do not use them sufficiently, although they are entirely applicable to both fixed and mobile foam systems. We analysed the requirements for application rate and time on mobile foam systems for fighting of spill fire of up to 400 m2 size. Application rates depend significantly on foam performance class, which also determine the amount of concentrate required for an intervention. The amount of concentrate is almost twice as high when using lowest class foam instead of highest class foam. Increased quantity of concentrate, requirements for additional equipment and larger number of firefighters as well as more complicated operation logistics can significantly outperform savings on the price of low-quality concentrate. In addition, firefighting capacity with existing equipment and firefighter safety will be much lower. The fact that a foam has been certified to European standards without specifying the class achieved gives no information about its quality and may lead firefighters to a completely wrong selection decision. Beside the essential details of foam fire tests and the time sequence of testing, this paper presents particular requirements to all foam classes in a new graphic format. Using data provided, each professional or volunteer fire station can produce their own calculation of costs, based on expected fire scenarios, existing equipment and number of firefighters.
Ključne riječi
Fire Fighting Foam; mobile extinguishing system; norms
Hrčak ID:
165899
URI
Datum izdavanja:
16.8.2016.
Posjeta: 3.422 *