Training Foam

[x635 4,066]

In another thread, it was mentioned about the cost of training with foam.

There are some cheap training foams, made specifically for training, on the market nowadays. Also, some dishwashing and other sudsy soaps can be a good solution for training with simulated foam. These solutions also make for good wetting agents for firefighting use. Not to mention these agents often disperse quicker and are more enviromentally friendly then using actual foam.

Out of curiousity, does any department use training-specific foam?

Foam, in my experience, seems to be the one thing that gives pump operators the hardest time, and is often the cause of complaints about the apparatus or eductor foam system itself. IMO, there should be more training on foam, with emphasis on upkeep and maintainence of foam systems.

Disclaimer: training foam shouldn't be used for training with live fire, only for foam application and system training.

[Remember585 815]

In my own opinion, it's cheaper and easier to use Dawn dish soap and water then to buy training foam.

[antiquefirelt 994]

We got lucky and some guy in a neighboring town sent us 4 -55 gal. drums of "old" foam from an oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Turns out they are required to test the foam monthly or quarterly and if any tests off the standard they have to get rid of it all. This forced them to change from a 3000 gal. bladder system to multiple 250 gal. totes, thus our "luck" of receiving the foam. Oddly, we didn't know it was coming so when the freight truck showed up, there was some scrambling to track down the "donor". We have used more tested and failed foam in training than good foam in true incidents a proportion I'm happy to keep this way.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Foam, in my experience, seems to be the one thing that gives pump operators the hardest time, and is often the cause of complaints about the apparatus or eductor foam system itself. IMO, there should be more training on foam, with emphasis on upkeep and maintainence of foam systems.

In my experience the one thing that gives pump operators the hardest time is actually flowing lines or devices at the proper flow. Many whether it be in training or on the street tend to be underflowed which can be dangerous. Any issues with foam tends to be a training issue which lends itself to operators forgetting what to do. Which is just as much on their shoulders as the departments.

If anything having an understanding of whatever system you are going to flow foam through is important. How hard is it to get foam? How is it the apparatus? Or the eductor? Any of the questions I just asked again in my experiences come down to the following answers....

1. Its not hard to get foam particularly with an eductor if you know what your doing. Put the eductor right on a discharge and give it the 200 psi most need. Ensure that the nozzle GPM that you are using matches the GPM on the eductor. Wanna put 50' of hose off the panel..whatever flips your boat but remember you can only have 150' in the system and the nozzle can not be more then 6' above the eductor. I prefer and recommend putting the eductor right on the discharge as it is easier to get your 200 psi accurately with a minimal friction loss coming right to the discharge.

2. The apparatus? Or again I don't know what I'm doing or I forgot so lets dismiss something else as being the problem. With the exception of some glitches I've seen in earlier CAFS systems I've never had an issue with an apparatus that wasn't maintenance issue.

3. The eductor? Again most problems encountered are maintenance issues, particularly not cleaning them properly or thoroughly after last use, not getting the right inlet Psi to achieve a venturi, or air leaks in the eductor. Around the pump proportioners are a different beast but again, there is foam tank that can coagulate or the opening where the foam gravity feeds into the pump casing could be clogged.

A couple of other pointers:

To maintain un-interrupted foam delivery, get a bucket and keep pouring the foam from the buckets into it. That way you don't have to lift the siphon tube every time you run low.

If you are serious about foam delivery issues...2 buckets isn't going to do much of anything.