PYRORAP

How can we make water a more efficient

extinguishing agent?
 

Water has been known as an extinguishing agent as long as fire has been known to man. Water is readily available, and for the most part, does a fine job against most fires. Because water is our weapon of choice, then we should do our best to apply it efficiently in the safest manner possible. This is where the typical nozzle types come into play. Many firefighters argue about which is better: straight or fog streams; and those among the broken stream crowd argue between automatic, fixed gallonage and selectable flow nozzles as their weapons of choice. Both stream types work by overwhelming the fire with copious amounts of water that is converted to steam from the heat. Have you ever considered the effect water would have if it were already separated into fine particles and delivered at a high rate of speed?

What we usually refer to as fog nozzles are really broken stream pattern nozzles. The water is broken into droplets about 400 to 600 microns in size, and is then delivered at approximately 40 mph.These large droplets of water boil from the fire's heat and expand 1700 times their size to form steam. Steam droplets are between 10 and 100 microns in size and do a fairly good job absorbing the heat of the fire, but they take time to expand and a lot of water is wasted. Water from a smooth bore nozzle is deflected into large droplets when it strikes the walls or ceiling in a room, and the droplets work in a similar manner.

Fog Stream In Action

The PyroLance allows you to deliver water more efficiently, which means putting the wet stuff on the red stuff has a whole new mea ning.

PyroLance N.A.

Director of Operations

Cas Seyffert is a veteran fire fighter of 28 years a retired District Chief from Johannesburg, South Africa. He served as a Captain with the United Nations Fire Service in Kosovo after the war as well as during ten years of riot fire fighting during the armed struggle in his country. He has introduced Truck and Engine Company Operations The Incident Command System to the South African Fire Services. He holds an equivalent Bachelors of Science degree in Fire Fighting Technology Administration.