Larry Haftl.com
PRODUCT REVIEW: Barricade Fire Blocking Gel
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In early May of this year a large wind-driven fire in Alberta, Canada, threatened one of the pulp and paper mills near the town of Slave Lake. Winds in excess of 50mph drove the fire through the black spruce forest and into the log decks. Troy O'Connor, general manager of Fire Force Control and Safety, Ltd., was one of the strike team leaders charged with saving the mill.
"When we got there the fire was already seating itself into the first two decks," said O'Connor. "Each of the decks is between 300 and 400 yards long and up to 125 feet high, and there was more than 40 acres of fire deep-seated in those two decks. The mill employees were already putting water on the decks, but they were losing the battle. We'd never used the Barricade Gel before, but we decided to use it on those two decks and then make a stand with all our resources behind the smaller deck. We gave the decks a fairly light coating of gel; there was intense fire on three sides, but the gel took the heat all that night and let us concentrate on holding at the smaller deck. We had 20 or 30 nozzles on that smaller deck, but even with that much water and foam we lost more than half the deck. If we hadn't gelled those bigger decks, we would have lost them - and probably the mill too. I believe that if we could have gelled the outer decks in time, we could have saved them too."
Al Hovan, district manager for the Alberta Forest Protection Service in Slave Lake, agreed with O'Connor. "After the fire, we were washing the gel off the decks and the logs were still so hot they turned the water into steam. I don't understand how the logs got that hot and did not ignite. By saving those decks, the gel saved the mill as well."
Their experience with Barricade Gel on that fire made believers of Fire Force, and since then they have incorporated the gel into their tool kit. "We were already set up to do Class A and compressed air foam," said O'Connor, "so we've added the Barricade Gel for both structure protection and in a pump-and-roll format. We can drive down a road and lay the gel on both sides of the road, making an effective firebreak. We tried it on one fire up here, but then the line got overrun by a crown fire. After that fire rolled through, the only thing left green was the area we gelled. The lower needles that got gelled did not burn. If we had sprayed all the way to the tops of those trees, we would have stopped the crown fire right there."
The effectiveness of the gel in protecting the sprayed foliage, even though it was subjected to the intense heat and direct flame impingement of a wind-driven black spruce crown fire, suggests that the gel could be used to protect fruit orchards and environ- mentally important vegetation. It may also be a very effective way to practice "light hands on the land" fire management.
"We've also used the gel to protect some of the oil and gas wells that were threatened by the fires," said O'Connor. "After shutting off the electric, we'd gel the electric panel, the shed, the poles, the tanks, and the well heads. We haven't lost any of them, even though several were in burnover areas."
"We're set up now to use Barricade as an option on all our rigs - 1,750 and 1,250 and 750 gpm pumpers, along with our smaller units. It's all end-of-line induction mixing, and we can easily switch among water, foam, and gel as needed. We even did a test with the new homeowner's kit; it has a gallon of gel concentrate and can be applied with a garden hose. We built a test pile of green logs 10 feet high and 30 feet long, used the homeowner's kit to gel half the pile, doused the other half with diesel fuel, and set it on fire. The ungelled half was reduced to ashes and the gelled half didn't burn at all. This stuff is perfect for structure protection."
Officials in Florida's Putnam County seemed to agree with O'Connor's assessment. The county is in the midst of handling some of the worst interface fires in Florida. "We're using it for structural protection," said Quinn Romay, operations coordinator for Putnam County's Office of Public Safety. "So far we have not lost one residence to the fires, and we've had direct flame impingement on several of them. We've got it in all our fire stations now, and they haven't lost a gelled structure yet. One pump shed next to a house was lost because it was not gelled. We're only gelling residences."
Barricade Gel may be saving more than structures and log decks. According to developer John Bartlett, president of Barricade Fire Protection, Inc., it may be saving firefighter lives. Bartlett was a lieutenant with Florida's Palm Beach County Fire Department and has more than 20 years' experience as a firefighter.
"If I'm working as an experienced strike team leader assigned to exposure protection in a wildland/urban interface situation, and I've got both Class A and compressed air foam, my capabilities are still limited. I have to look at the whole situation and, if necessary, pick my winners and my losers - those structures I have a chance of saving and those structures I don't. I know how long the foam will be effective, and I may have to wait before I apply it. Meanwhile, my crew is saying 'Come on Captain, let's foam this place and get out of here,' and I have to keep them calm while we wait. If we apply water or foam too soon, it will not be effective when the fire gets to the house. Sometimes you have to wait so long that you put your people at risk from the fire. With Barricade you wouldn't be picking winners and losers and then camping out waiting for the fire. You would be gelling everything in sight and getting out of the area long before the fire got there. And you would be leaving knowing that those structures were really protected."
According to Bartlett, foam breaks down at about 200 degrees Fahrenheit, when the heat expands the air inside the bubbles and the bubbles break. "Barricade Gel can take direct flame impingement without breaking down, and can be applied many hours before the fire gets to the structure - and it will be intact. We tested it on a house in the Nevada desert - low relative humidity, 20 mph winds, 105 degree temperature - and the gel gave good fire protection more than six hours later. When the outer layer finally does lose its moisture, all you have to do is spray it with a light mist of water from a fog nozzle, and it is completely ready to go again. You could do it with a garden hose if you had to."
Bartlett and one of his distributors, Wildfire Pacific, used Barricade on a recent prescribed burn in California. The gel was applied by helicopter using the FireSno Aerial Foam System to pretreat an area upslope from a flash point. When the flames got to the pretreated area, they stopped. The incident commander on the fire also used it to extinguish some fire that was threatening to get out of the prescribed area. "He called for a drop using the gel from the helicopter's aerial foam system," said Bartlett. "When the gel hit those 20-foot flames, it just knocked them down completely and they never rekindled."
Though Barricade Gel appears to be something approaching the firefighters' dream tool, it also has a few drawbacks. The stuff is more slippery than puppy poop, and definitely more slippery than foam. Get this stuff on a smooth concrete driveway, and you have something close to an ice skating rink to walk on. The gel cleans up with just water, but it takes longer than foam to clean up. You can clean a hose or nozzle by simply running water through them, but cleaning up the hose on the inductor valve takes a bit more effort. Barricade created a small tool similar to a pipe cleaner to help with this. If you spray the gel onto something, you are also going to have to hose yourself off afterwards - because it will get on you and stick like snot. Once the danger from fire has passed, the gelled structures can be cleaned up simply by hosing them down; an average garden hose is enough to do the job.
Barricade is completely biodegradable, is safe for people and the environment, and meets all EPA requirements. The stuff is so environmentally friendly that a variation of the formula is used in agriculture and on golf courses. The stuff is buried in the soil where it's not exposed to the sun, it lasts for years, and can reduce water consumption by up to 85 percent. Though it can be batch-mixed in tanks, it should really be used at the end of the hose line through some sort of induction system.
"When we started out four years ago, we tried powders because that was all that was available," said Bartlett. "But the powders had some significant problems that scared the hell out of us. If you make even a minor mistake when batch mixing in an engine's tank, you may get too thick a mixture and force that engine to be taken off the line for cleanout. We also found that in tanks with baffles, we were getting uneven mixtures that would sometimes plug up the valves. As firelighters we ruled out powders and batch mixing as an option and worked with a chemist to develop a liquid concentrate that was more reliable."
Gels have different fluid dynamics and more friction than water, and would require more pressure to pump; by designing systems for end-of-line induction. Barricade not only eliminated the problems of batch mixing, but also reduced waste and made cleanup easier. The gel can be batch-mixed if needed - supplying gel for helicopter water buckets, for example.
"Barricade Gel is not a replacement for foam," said Bartlett. "It is a different type of tool." In a straight cost comparison, Barricade Gel is significantly more expensive than Class A foam. A gallon of Class A foam costs between $12 and $15. A gallon of gel runs $26 to $30. Foam is typically mixed at . 5 percent while Barricade recommends mixing its gel at between 2 and 3 percent - so it's four to six times more expensive per gallon of mixed solution. Barricade Gel is available in a one-gallon bottle, a five-gallon pail, and a 48.5 gallon drum (the largest size that meets maximum shipping weight limitations of common carriers). The homeowner's kit comes with a one-gallon bottle and an induction valve that fits onto a standard garden hose and will work with any pressure. Barricade has also just released a new five-gallon backpack unit.
The backpack unit is designed to give firefighters maximum flexibility in choosing between water only and the water/gel combination. A plastic hose comes out of the bottom of the backpack and has a quick-connect fitting that attaches to a variable inductor valve right behind a hose nozzle. "Firefighters wearing the backpack can choose the mixture ratio right at the nozzle," said Bartlett. "They can turn off the gel or turn it on and adjust it between thin and thick flows as they go." Cleanup is also easy - just turn off the gel, disconnect the hose, and run water through the inductor valve and nozzle.
As Bartlett points out. Barricade Gel should not be considered as a replacement for foam. It is a different tool with different uses. It opens up possibilities for increased firefighter safety and improved structural and environment protection that never existed before. If you are engaged in any type of fire fighting, you should take a close look at this product and then decide if and how it can fill a hole in your current fire fighting tool kit.
Current Contact Information:
Barricade Fire Blocking Gel
18425 SE Federal Hwy
Jupiter, FL 33469
800-201-3927
www.barricadegel.com
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