NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 30

Overall, Back characterized the
firefighters' initial performance as awkward.
" They had no technique and they
seemed to be constantly thinking about
what they were doing, " he said. " The
fires always got worse before they got
better. But eventually, by the end of the
week, they got the hang of it. The takeaway
is that training is going to be key. "
Other issues that have emerged wherever
AFFF has been replaced include the
disposal of any remaining AFFF concentrate
and the assessment of equipment
that may be contaminated. Some states
have offered to dispose of fire departments'
AFFF for free through takeback
programs, but departments that aren't
so fortunate must foot the disposal costs
themselves, which can run up to $20
per gallon, Back said. Even departments
that can easily offload their AFFF are
still confronted with the thorny question
of how to ensure their new foam isn't
tainted with residual AFFF.
" I worked with Los Angeles County
to help transition their foam trucks to
fluorine free, and one of the questions
we couldn't answer was how clean the
existing tank has to be to make the
transition, " said Hawthorne, a co-author
of the Foundation's roadmap report.
" To this day, there is still no regulatory
number that has been agreed upon
across the US. Do you wash it once or
five times? That's important because
every time you wash out a 1,000-gallon
foam tank, all that rinse water is contaminated,
and now you have to collect
and dispose of 1,000 gallons of contaminated
water. You can't put it down the
sewer drain. What do you do with it?
Even that is still a question. "
APPROACHING DEADLINES
In 2004, a study commissioned by a
group called the Fire Fighting Foam
Coalition estimated that there was
roughly 10 million gallons of AFFF
The petroleum industry has long relied on AFFF to snuff out fires
at facilities worldwide, both on land and at sea. Here, firefighters
in the United Kingdom spray foam onto oil storage tanks during a
fire at a depot on the outskirts of London.
concentrate in the United States and
its territories. About 10 percent of it
belonged to municipal fire departments,
the report found. The vast
majority-more than 80 percent-
resided on military bases, at airports,
and at gas and oil facilities.
While the amount of AFFF at petroleum
facilities has likely been greatly
reduced since then, large quantities
remain at airports and military installations,
which are still required by federal
standards to use AFFF. Much of this
fluorinated foam resides inside fixed
suppression systems, which sit at the
ready to discharge thousands of gallons
of foam to protect key infrastructure
including aircraft hangars, fuel storage
tanks, and refueling stations in the
event of a fire.
To the US military, the nation's largest
user of AFFF, the performance differences
between AFFF and fluorine-free
foam can be significant. When a pool of
30 | NFPA JOURNAL * FALL 2022
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NFPA Journal - Fall 2022

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