MikeD,
Wanted to touch base again after several meetings regarding a new ARFF vehicle and get your opinion on a couple of things. Although our airport is not indexed at this point, the direction we've been given is to evaluate at least Class III ARFF vehicles in case they do pursue indexing at some point in the future. In replacing the P-19, it seems like the current Class III vehicles may be a step down (particularly with regards to a 500 gallon tank instead of the 1000 and having a 250 gpm bumper turret only). Also, the feedback we've received on the Class III has been fairly underwhelming from talking to airports that currently have them. We've looked mostly at the Rosenbauer Airwolf and KME Force. We have had some preliminary conversations about looking at a Class IV instead, but I don't know if that will be a possibility due to budgetary constraints...we'll have to see. The vehicle is going to be used for ARFF as well as possibly industrial or HAZMAT applications on occasion, so better handling on roadways would be an upgrade over what the P-19 currently offers. We've also discussed using AR-AFFF instead of AFFF because of the multi-use role. Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.
Thanks Again,
Bigs
My humble opinions only below.
One of the things to consider when talking straight gallonage is that firefighting technologies have become more efficient, to where similar fires can be fought with less water/foam. Things like UHP (Ultra High Pressure) turrets, uses of Compresse Air Foam (CAFS) and the like, make being able to have less water still viable for fire suppression. The Rosenbauer and KME vehicles you mention above are good vehicles, as are the E-One Titan Force and the Oshkosh Stryker 1500, both 1500 gallon vehicles for Class IV.
What size air carrier aircraft are you anticipating getting there, or is this primarily for General Aviation? If it's only for General Aviation, a Class 2 unit wouldn't be bad, as they're still multirole crash/structural like others, but more compact and mobile. Unless you have some medium sized or larger air carrier aircraft as your customer, such as an E-170 or CRJ-900, a Class IV is great but is alot of $$$ for anything less than those as your customer, whereas a good Class III would suffice. With one of those aforementioned aircraft or larger, a Class IV would be the appropriate one.
In terms of which foam to use, synthetic or protein, it all depends on what you are expecting to encounter and as anything else, your budget. AFFF works great for the vast majority of Class B firefighting applications and is an industry standard for airport ops. AR-AFFF is better capability if you need the alcohol resistance factor for forming vapor barrier protection against alcohol-based fuels, but that's not required in standard Class B
suppression applications. A nice-to-have vs a need-to-have, more useful in fuel spills with ignition potential (before or after fire), rather than actual fire knockdown. AR in both AFFF as well as FFFP (protein) foam is a little more expensive to purchase, so again, it's nice, but in a normal airport application, not specifically required. On our company trucks (Class I/II) we run both regular AFFF, as well as AR-FFFP, simply because we were able to find some bulk FFFP for sale. We use the AFFF primary for firefighting because its fast flow, quick knockdown (if the fire isn't 3-dimensional), and generally there's not a reignition problem. The FFFP is there for vapor barrier creation and maintenance due to its lower flow and much thicker viscosity. So to answer your question, regular AFFF is fine for most applications, and especially if cost is a factor.
