THE GREAT FOAM DILEMMA

A guide to choosing the most suitable foam for your fire protection needs IN 1902 Russian chemist and engineer Aleksander Loran developed and patented the first fire suppression foam for extinguishing flammable liquid fires, by physically mixing two powders and water. Many innovations to fire-fighting foam have since been developed, including Aerofoam (Percy Lavon Julian, 1942), high-expansion foam (Herbert Eisner, 1956), fluoroprotein foam (National Foam, 1965), aqueous form filming foam, AFFF (US Navy, 1966), alcohol resistant aqueous form filming foam, AR-AFFF (National Foam, 1973), and synthetic fluorine-free foam, SF3 (3M - 2002). All foam concentrates mentioned with the exception of SF3 are based on six-carbon (C6) or eight-carbon (C8) fluorinated surfactants. Until recently, choosing a foam concentrate type was relatively straight forward since local, state, federal, and/or national requirements did not restrict the use of any foam, as long as it was approved by the US National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which meant: passing specific Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL) tests or gaining Factory Mutual (FM) approvals. In the past two decades, restrictions on the use...