NFPA Journal - Summer 2024 - 17

upcoming NFPA Conference &
Expo®
, scheduled for June in
Orlando. The first involves a
roundtable discussion about
the Foundation's ongoing
project, " Firefighting Foams:
A Fire Service Roadmap, "
which will include some of
the world's leading experts
on firefighting foams. The
multiyear effort, funded by the
Federal Emergency Management
Agency, aims to provide
fire departments with detailed
input on how best to manage
the involved process of switching
to the AFFF replacements,
known as fluorine-free foams,
including updated tactics.
A second session, " Transitioning
to Fixed Fluorine-Free
Foam Systems, " will review the
performance and engineering
challenges that engineers and
system designers face when
switching to the new foams
in fixed systems.
For years, scientists have
warned that the chemicals
Conference
Sessions
Firefighting Foams: Fire
Service Roadmap Updates
Date Tuesday, June 18, 8-9 a.m.
Speakers Gerard Back,
Jensen Hughes
Edward Hawthorne,
DFW Dynamics
Casey Grant, DSRAE, LLC
Niall Ramsden,
ENRG Consultants
Transitioning to Fixed FluorineFree
Foam Systems
Date Tuesday, June 18, 5-6 p.m.
Speakers Bernard Leong and
Ritchie Tantiado, Chevron
Richard Philbrick, Shell
as well. Would the new substances,
when they came,
perform like AFFF, or would
new firefighting tactics need
to be developed? How should
departments and facilities
dispose of their toxic and
expensive caches of AFFF?
Would automatic suppression
systems, or even tanker
nozzles and hoses, need to
be redesigned or replaced to
accommodate the new fluorine-free
foams?
Researchers have taken
a systematic approach to
answering those questions.
In January 2023, after years
of testing, the U.S. military
released its long-awaited performance
specifications for
fluorine-free foams, which
outline exactly how the new
foams need to perform to
be purchased for use by the
U.S. government. This set the
benchmarks for manufacturers
while providing facilities
and fire departments around
present in AFFF-known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances, or PFAS-don't break down naturally
and can therefore accumulate indefinitely in the
environment and human body, potentially causing
cancers and other health problems. Citing this evidence,
governments around the world began taking
steps about five years ago to ban or limit AFFF. The
U.S. military, which helped develop AFFF in the
1960s, has announced that it will stop using AFFF
by October of this year, and the Federal Aviation
Administration intends to follow suit at thousands
of airports across the country. Several European
countries have already stopped using AFFF, and
there is pending legislation to ban the manufacture,
use, and export of AFFF for the entirety of the
European Union.
Until recently, however, AFFF was the only substance
on the market that could meet the rigorous
specifications of the U.S. military for quickly and
effectively snuffing out liquid fuel fires. This conundrum
left firefighters and emergency managers in a
bind about how to deal with high-stakes incidents
including plane fires, fuel truck rollovers, and oil
refinery fires.
New foams, new questions
The issue raised a host of other thorny questions
the world with a reliable list of fluorine-free products
to choose from as replacements to AFFF.
As that was happening, the Fire Protection
Research Foundation pursued its series of reports filling
in the gaps around the other questions. The first
phase of its " Roadmap " project, published in 2022,
outlined the steps fire departments should take to
transition away from AFFF, and summarized available
information and existing knowledge gaps. The
second phase, underway now, builds on that by establishing
comprehensive best practices for switching
to fluorine free foams. This includes information on
when to make the Transition, cleaning of equipment
and disposal of unused AFFF, foam selection and
implementation, minimizing firefighter exposures,
and how to handle foam discharges from a cleanup
and documentation perspective.
The presentation at the NFPA Conference will
summarize the latest information on all these topics
and provide recommendations and best practices for
other unresolved issues.
In addition, a webinar series, which covers various
considerations of the complex transition, has
been ongoing this spring. Registration for the next
webinars, scheduled for May 9 and June 6, is open
now. To register and to watch past webinars in the
series, visit nfpa.org/foundation.
NFPA.ORG/
DISPATCHES
Watch the
webinar
series,
" Firefighting
Foams: Fire
Service
Roadmap
Workshop
Series, "
presented
by the Fire
Protection
Research
Foundation.
Read the Fall
2022 NFPA
Journal cover
story, " The
New Foam. "
Listen to an
NFPA Podcast
interview with
Gerard Back
of Jensen
Hughes on the
latest foam
research and
the transition
to newgeneration
foam.s.
http://www.NFPA.ORG/DISPATCHES http://www.nfpa.org/foundation
NFPA Journal - Summer 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Summer 2024
