DIY Rural Fire Protection Discussion

seanbarr said:

Anyone with foaming advice?

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For type of foam, I'd suggest 1/2% or 1% class A. You can add it direct to the water, but that can be hard on the pump. Better is a foam eductor, but that requires considerable pressure from the pump and can get plugged up. Best of all is a balanced pressure proportioning system with a separate foam concentrate pump or compressed air to inject the foam into the water.

Just spraying the mixture through a fog nozzle will work better than water but is not very efficient use of foam. An aspirating nozzle will improve the expansion. A compressed air or fan driven system provides the highest expansion ratio. That's great for stretching your foam supply to cover the greatest area -- but comes at a cost. Highly expanded foam does not project very far from the nozzle and is easily carried away by wind. For pre-treating your property and buildings against an approaching fire, I would think a medium expansion of around 20:1 is probably the best compromise.

But that's just my 2¢.

Anyone with foaming advice?


Dawn Dish Soap......enviro friendly and will foam up/make your water "wetter" and soak in. The soap reduces/eliminates reduces the water's ability to stay on top of organic material, soaking into it to make it wet.

Not too much, but use enough to foam up.......if you're running it through your pump and use too much, you can cavitate your pump and loose your pumping capability (pumping pure foam doesn't work). If you have an "inductor" set-up, you can make it as foamy as you like....but, I wanna see pictures if you run it super strong!
[an inductor set-up is just a small hose into the pressure side of the discharge of your pump that drafts (pulls) the soap into the water being sent out the hose]
We used to put about 1/2 a quart into out surplus army 6x6 tanks with a little honda pump for brusg /field fires down in Marion County, OR.....MCFD1

Dave
(firefighter/paramedic....for a long time still)

fj40dave said:

Dawn Dish Soap......enviro friendly and will foam up/make your water "wetter" and soak in. The soap reduces/eliminates reduces the water's ability to stay on top of organic material, soaking into it to make it wet.
Dave
(firefighter/paramedic....for a long time still)

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Dish soap (of various brands) has been suggested as a poor man's foam concentrate for many years now. In truth, it's a wetting agent, not a foam. It reduces the surface tension and will help water penetrate instead of running off, but it won't blanket, insulate and precipitate the way true foam will. And the cost of Dawn per litre/gallon is higher than class A foam concentrate. If you are going to use dish soap, look for bulk commercial brands to bring down the price.

torch
(Career Company Officer, 29 years and counting...)

Finally was able to put pics up.

Thanks for the advice on the foam! A few nights ago, I read that some of the veteran engineers (fire pump operators) resorted to tapping the outtake and installing a small port with a valve that’s connected to the concentrate via hose. They swear up & down that it does better than the factory setup that causes issues.

I’d like to try to get some class A foam concentrate. Should I feed them directly from the bottle or get a small gravity fed tank and fill that instead?










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I'm not sure what you mean by "outtake". Do you mean the pump discharge or the tank outlet?

The simplest method of adding concentrate is to simply add it to the water tank. The problem becomes mixing it evenly, so you have to use more concentrate to ensure a minimum concentration at all times, which is wasteful. Plus it can be an issue with some pumps.

A refinement of that approach is to meter the concentrate at the pump inlet, using gravity or a venturi to draw the correct proportion of concentrate. This is less wasteful and limits the concentration going through the pump. Principle drawback is that the concentration will only be correct at a specific flow rate -- your photos look like you have 2 discharge outlets, so your foam concentration would be almost halved if both are in operation compared to just one. You would have to use a valve in the concentrate line and do some experimenting to find the right setting for the correct proportion.

The most common method in use by fire departments is via eductor at the pump outlet, but I don't think that will work with your pump. From what I can see, you have ABS piping and polycarb nozzle, making me suspect your discharge pressure is limited to around 50 or 60psi. An eductor typically requires 200 psi pump pressure. Plus you need a separate eductor for each hose outlet.

If you put a slightly different eductor between the pump discharge and the pump inlet, you get an around-the-pump proportioner. It can feed more than one hoseline, but still needs 100psi or so pump pressure.

A balanced pressure proportioning system uses a bladder tank or separate foam concentrate pump to inject concentrate into the pump discharge. It accommodates a wide range of pressures and flow rates, doesn't put any concentrate through the pump -- but it ain't cheap.

The ultimate system would be a slide-in standalone CAFS unit. Designed to fit in a pick-up bed like a tool box, they incorporate the water pump, foam injection system and an air compressor to make the perfect foam first time, every time with concentrations as low as 0.1%. But as with everything aimed at fire department use, you could probably buy a new tractor for less.

Once you have decided on how you are going to get the concentrate into the water, you next have to decide on how you are going to generate your foam. That will depend on how much pressure you can supply to the end of the hose and the volume you can deliver at that pressure. A simple fog nozzle like the one in your picture is going to produce a very wet low expansion foam.

It would be nice if you can get a medium expansion aspirating nozzle and get up into 20:1 or better. If I'm correct in my thinking about the volume and pressure you can expect from that pump, then something like the Task Force Tips FJ-MX-060 (60usgpm@60psi) or even the FJ-MX-080 (80usgpm@60psi) might work.

I think if I had to go to that much trouble, I'd just move !!!

ipz2222 said:

I think if I had to go to that much trouble, I'd just move !!!

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2nd that

Actually, it’s doing stuff like this makes it fun to do. We love the trees, quiet & space out here. This serves double & triple duty as a logging trailer in the spring and in the dusty months while logging, I water down the area where I’m logging & chipping.




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ipz2222 said:

I think if I had to go to that much trouble, I'd just move !!!

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There's something, no matter where you live. I will take our fires over hurricanes, flooding, lava, big city traffic & crime, etc, etc, etc.....

shootem604 said:

Sean, that's a neat setup you've got there. I had something very similar in mind, but I want to be able to reach some distance up the tall trees I have, so I need more pressure too I think. Also, in a hurry, I would like to be able to pump directly from the creek, or be able to refill the totes from the creek with the same pump. Still kicking around ideas here.

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My setup allows drafting. The pump has two intake ports and I have another suction hose to use to draft from the pool if needed. Currently, I do have pump capability at the pool to supply water on a 1 1/2” line that I can use to fill the tank fast without resorting to connecting the suction.

I’m almost done converting a “fire cart” as a fast response setup to bring the hoses & pump to the rear of the house where the pool is for perimeter protection using the electric pool pump and/or gas pump with its own suction line.

To reach tall trees, it may be necessary to go with a smooth bore nozzle either on a monitor (stationary) setup or on a short hose. I’m looking to get a 1” hose line on a live reel but if it cost too much, hang them loosely in a figure 8 off the side of the tank.

The pump I have is a general pump but there ARE dedicated portable fire pumps with higher pressure capability.



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Buddy of mine lives in Alpine, CA, east of San Diego. His pump, hose and pool helped save his house twice with huge fires in the last decade.

And the year before his first fire, his wife was on him to sell the pump.

Not any more.

Ray, I also have a friend in Alpine, CA. He had a hillside home and when he evacuated, he took everything but his boat, which had a huge outboard on it.
When he returned to clean up the ashes, he found that the aluminum outboard had melted into a very cool, multi-armed, silver amoeba-like sculpture. It hangs on his wall in the new house. It was the only positive to come from the situation.
He tells people it is worth $900,000+, because that's what it cost him to get it.

Don't forget that close proximity to the fire will get you very hot also. May need to have a thermal suit available. I burnt a brush pile of Bradford pear limbs once, about 8 ft high. The heat was so intense, the side of my metal barn , 40 feet away started to smoke. It was all I could do to get close enough with a garden hose to take it down some.

I have a 500 gallon tank in an old flat bed hooked up to a Honda powered trash pump. It will empty the tank in 5m with the 3" hose. Waiting for a junk rv trailer to fall my way so I can build a bigger tank. Meanwhile I am using an adjustable nozzle to regulate the flow. We drag it around with the tractor when working to meet the fire requirements.

20+ years ago, before I had water on the property, I used a 500 gal, 2 axle water trailer to haul water from a community well.
A fire was threatening, (about 4 mi away) so I made 22 trips hauling water 4 1/2 mi one way from the community well to a forest service "swimming pool" that was being used as a staging tank to fill fire trucks. Some area homeowners gave me crap about my piddly little trailer not making any difference, but I supplied 110,000 gal to the firefighters while they kibitzed.
Do what you can with what you have.

Lil Foot said:

20+ years ago, before I had water on the property, I used a 500 gal, 2 axle water trailer to haul water from a community well.
A fire was threatening, (about 4 mi away) so I made 22 trips hauling water 4 1/2 mi one way from the community well to a forest service "swimming pool" that was being used as a staging tank to fill fire trucks. Some area homeowners gave me crap about my piddly little trailer not making any difference, but I supplied 110,000 gal to the firefighters while they kibitzed.
Do what you can with what you have.

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"Do what you can with what you have."

And that my friend is words to live by.

Lil Foot said:

20+ years ago, before I had water on the property, I used a 500 gal, 2 axle water trailer to haul water from a community well.
A fire was threatening, (about 4 mi away) so I made 22 trips hauling water 4 1/2 mi one way from the community well to a forest service "swimming pool" that was being used as a staging tank to fill fire trucks. Some area homeowners gave me crap about my piddly little trailer not making any difference, but I supplied 110,000 gal to the firefighters while they kibitzed.
Do what you can with what you have.

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And I bet the neighbors didn’t haul any water to contribute to the cause.