Pro Tip: teaching moment - tanker fires.

[Capttomo]

The internet and Sites like YouTube provide us with a wealth of videos for us as firefighters to learn from. The problem is most of the time the video does not truly explain what is going on and why certain things occurred. That’s when the armchair quarterbacks come out. But there are times when we can truly use these videos as a teaching tool. Enter the attached snapshot from a video of the recent tanker fire on 95 in Norwalk Ct. First some basic true and proven tenets of bulk flammable liquid firefighting : 1) plunging any type of stream (foam or water) into a pool or open container of burning flammable liquids yields no positive gains, it only aerates the fire, increases the intensity, renders any foam ineffective, and quickly causes the flammable liquid to spillover the container or tank walls and spread onto the ground and then fan out over a large area or great distance. This is especially true when master streams are plunged into the burning flammable liquid fire. 2) foam must be applied as gently as possible to the surface of burning flammable liquids. 3) water should be judiciously around burning flammable liquids so as not to spread the burning materials and/ or destroy an existing foam blanket. The picture attached was grabbed from video of this incident. If you watch the video it is apparent, and undeniable that a master stream flowing from an aerial without anyone at the tip to guide the stream was somehow, let’s for the benefit of doubt say accidentally plunged into the open burning tanker. The predictable results are very graphic. The fire becomes very agitated and grows in magnitude as well as sloshing over the tank walls and spreading burning fuel. I don’t know if the stream was water or foam - regardless, the result will ALWAYS be the same. I don’t know if a spotter was deployed to direct the stream - inadvertently it wound up where it shouldn’t have gone. I don’t know if the aerial master stream was intended to be used as exposure protection such as keeping the concrete overpass cool - but the stream wound up going where it should not have been. So the take away from this, the teaching moment here is be very careful and cautious when using water streams - especially master streams - especially remote controlled aerial master streams around bulk tank flammable liquid fires. All in all the members of Norwalk had their hands full with a very difficult situation: water supply, large quantity foam application, scene access, exposures, topography etc. Not trying to be critical but attempting to share and obvious lesson learned. Stay safe and never stop training.

 

[CT Buff]

Undoubtedly there are some on here closer to this situation, perhaps from Norwalk - but I found this article from CT Insider (Hearst CT newspapers) from yesterday to be interesting.

How a Norwalk company's 'green' foam-spraying vehicle helped put out fiery I-95 crash​

By Katherine Lutge, Staff Writer
NORWALK — With its foam-spraying vehicle, a local specialty chemical company answered Norwalk Fire Department’s call for aid to help put out the massive fire caused by a tractor-trailer full of gasoline that was involved in a Thursday crash on Interstate 95.
Retired Norwalk Fire Captain Tim Morrissette received the call from his friend Ed McCabe, assistant chief-operations for Norwalk Fire Department, on his way to work at King Industries early Thursday morning.
“The vehicle is readily available for whenever it’s needed,” Morrissette explained. “Ed had given me a call… and I literally parked my vehicle and got in our quick response vehicle and headed to the highway, so under five minutes, we’re able to get the vehicle on scene.”
“We also had to call in our partner from King Industries, which has a brand new foam fighting vehicle,” said Gino Gatto, chief of Norwalk Fire Department, during a press conference at Norwalk’s City Hall Thursday morning. Foam is the best way to put out this type of fire, he said.
Robert King, vice president of operations at King Industries, explained many of their employees are either Norwalk firefighters or retired firefighters like Morrissette.
“We train with the Norwalk Fire Department and the Fairfield County Hazmat team throughout the year, so that serves for good camaraderie and mutual learning,” King said.
With a location just off the Norwalk River, the specialty chemical company produces and supplies lubricants, coatings, rubber, and specialty technology. For safety purposes, King Industries operates its own fire brigade, which is why the company had the vehicle ready to go.
Once Morrissette arrived with the foam-spraying vehicle, he said Norwalk firefighters worked to get the foam distributed.
“Water supply is a problem and especially on a highway like that, so it took us some time to get a good water supply so we could apply the correct amount of foam,” Morrissette said. “Once we did get the water supply, probably 20 to 25 minutes, we were able to put the fire out with our vehicle.”
The fire erupted around 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning after a tractor-trailer carrying 8,500 gallons of gasoline crashed under the Fairfield Avenue overpass. Flames engulfed the bridge for about an hour until crews were able to extinguish them.
Joe Coppola, deputy chief of safety and training for the Norwalk Fire Department, said King Industries was "pivotal" in extinguishing the fire.
Mike Bourgoin, King Industries' environmental manager, said they use a “green” foam that does not contain “forever chemicals,” which are also known as PFAS.
“We use a green foam which is non-fluorinated foam,” Bourgoin said.
Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection was on-site Thursday and confirmed the foam was environmentally friendly.
“I can assure the general public that everything that was used was the green foam, non-PFAS,” said Richard Swan from DEEP during the press conference.
“The runoff from the area was limited because of the amount of gasoline that consumed in the fire and we have been able to contain into a retention pond behind the wall and it did not make it to the Norwalk River at all,” Swan said.
King said the company values its relationship with Norwalk’s Fire Department.
“I think it exemplifies the mutual benefits that result from a strong partnership between local government entities and, and private industry,” King said. “We just like being helpful in the community and I think today that was a good example of that.”

 

[jvcoppola15]

Good Morning. I was one of the Chiefs on scene. The hose stream you are referring to was being used to cool the bridge deck and to prevent a 100lb gas main directly under the tank from being exposed further. The picture does not depict the unbelievable solid tactical decisions that were made that morning by arriving company and chief officers. While there were times the hose stream made its way to the tanker, once the foam began being applied, that line was shut down. When faced with that amount of fire, and that dangerous of an exposure, textbook tactics tend to be skewed a bit, as I am sure you are aware.

 

[68jk09]

Another TIP not related to positioning at this particular Fire but for Tanker Truck Fires in general..... approach the Tank from the sides as the ends are designed to blow out in certain circumstances.....this was graphically proven back around 1979 when in R*2 we were operating a 2 1/2" Foam Handline at a Multiple Alarm Fire at a Tank Farm in Greenpoint.....the Foam Unit was not able to hit the main area still burning with their Deckpipe because it was under a corrugated roof that covered the filling station area....we were operating the 2 1/2 from the side when the back of one of the truck's blew out....as with most trucks of that era the metering device & various fittings were attached to the rear of the tank....when it blew out all the pieces went flying by like large pieces of shrapnel hitting the front of another truck parked a fair distance behind the truck.....they were Macks with a fiberglass tilt cab ( just like our then 1976 Mack Rescue ) .......the flying pieces basically ripped apart the fiberglass hood .....needless to say a person in the path would have been killed or severely injured ......I don't know the present Foam equipment used by FDs today but back then our landline was fed by the Venturi system of a pickup tube inserted in a 5 gallon can of Foam concentrate (carried alongside the Nozzleman by a FF)....at one point in the process of moving the Handline forward in the commotion the pickup tube came out of the can & fell into the Foam blanket we were walking thru however underneath the Foam was a mix of water & gasoline...it was noticed & corrected before the pickup could introduce any possible gasoline into the stream....in a copy of Fire Engineering back then there was a picture of us operating ......the ground mounted monitors that were also being used to provide water streams for cooling surrounding uninvolved trucks were supplied by water pumped right from the contaminated Newtown Creek alongside the Tank Farm rather than from a City Main ...we were in an almost constant "rain" of this putrid water also......today it would be a Major Decon Event all around between the gasoline...the Foam & the Creek Water.