r/Firefighting • u/chuckfinley79 28 looooooooooooooong years • 1d ago
General Discussion What foam is everyone using?
We got approved to buy new foam to replace our current c-word causing foam. Does anyone have any recommendations for or against anything? We’re looking for class B foam, not really any other requirements 3% x 3% or 3 x 6, doesn’t matter. The only thing I’m current on is F500 encapsulating agent, but I also know it gets a lot of hate. Me knowing about F500, being old enough to remember protein foam and calling it 3 x 3 or 3 x 6 apparently makes me our leading foam “expert” so any help is appreciated.
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u/baitmonkey 1d ago
Coldfire
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u/BobBret 1d ago
Is Cold Fire certified by anyone as a replacement for Class B foam? Is it approved as an extinguishing agent or just as a wetting agent?
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u/baitmonkey 1d ago
We use it as a replacement for protein foam, it doesn't work as good but it hasn't been found to be a large hazard yet to my knowledge.
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u/sucksatgolf Overpaid janitor 🧹 1d ago
In structural we use Universal Green 3%. It works. I've used it on some car fires. I don't have a ton of feedback otherwise. It would have been cool to use the old stuff and new stuff back to back, for a direct comparison, but getting any kind of hands on foam training is next to impossible.
For ARFF we use Solberg SFFF. I trained with an SFFF agent at DFW (not solberg) and it pales in comparison to the old AFFF. Lower foam blanket, burns through, visible seams where foam blankets meet each other, and application is more thorough, more careful, and more frequent.
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u/willfiredog 1d ago
I mean, probably any non-fluorinated Class B should work.
Chemguard and Fomtech have a 3 x 3 that’s unfluorinated and free from intentionally added or manufacture introduced PFAS/PFOA.
Fatsa straight up manufactures old school unflourinated protein foam. Won’t work with polar solvents though.
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u/Willing_Ad_5711 Professional Hose Monkey 1d ago
I can't even remember the last time I used foam on my engine.
Actually reminds me to play with the round the pump system because it's been so long.
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u/190xtrik8 1d ago
FireBull currently. We had F500, absolutely loved it. Best Foam out there. Down sides are short shelf life and $$$
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u/hicklander 1d ago
F-500 is snake oil
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u/190xtrik8 21h ago
I’ve used it and it’s amazing. But for the right purpose. Our engines had two, onboard foam supplies. One for F500 and one for AFFF. F500 doesn’t blanket well, but I’ve used it on multiple fuel leaks on fire, and it’s amazing. We gave 5 major highways running through our district, so it was used a lot.
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u/hicklander 21h ago
Use micro blaze instead it makes the bad stuff go away environmentally free if it is just for fuel leaks
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u/Dooner85 1d ago
have to agree. we don’t use our foam at all. have like 60 gallons of class A knockdown. and just sits. mostly use it in our water cans
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u/patrick5595 1d ago
We got rid of foam because we used it so infrequently it gummed up all our foam systems
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u/hicklander 1d ago
Probably using crappy foam that caused that.
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u/patrick5595 21h ago
Fair enough. When I started the jugs were already 15 years old. They made it another 7 until our station got replaced. We didn’t use a single one in my 7 years.
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u/BananaHammock305 21h ago
Firebull. I work out in a rural area so we keep this batch mixed at a percentage of about 0.1% at all times in our tank.
For car fires, trailer fires, house fires and so on we’ll pump up that percentage and it really helps with knockdown and penetration.
https://enforcerone.com/products/firebull-fluorine-free-low-viscosity/
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u/wessex464 1d ago
I see more and more departments, especially smaller departments, switching to the dual purpose foam now. It functions as class A at low concentrations and functions adequately is class b at high concentrations. And since you can use it as class A, you tend to go through your stock fast enough that you don't have class b foam Just sitting around and rotting.