First response gearMassachusetts firefighters purchase chemical fire equipment
Local firefighters in Massachusetts recently received a new foam trailer capable of pumping out 500 gallons per minute; to control chemical fires and other difficult blazes, firefighters often use foam to coat the fuel to deprive the fire of oxygen; the new foam trailer is particularly useful as Ayer is home to several chemical and electrical facilities
Local firefighters in Massachusetts recently received a new foam trailer capable of pumping out 500 gallons per minute.
The Ayer Fire Department, located in northern Massachusetts, purchased the trailer with an $84,000 grant from DHS.
To control chemical fires and other difficult blazes, firefighters often use foam to coat the fuel to deprive the fire of oxygen.
The new foam trailer is particularly useful as Ayer is home to several chemical and electrical facilities.
Ayer fire chief Robert Pedrazzi said, “there’s the rail yard, an ethanol/methanol windshield wiper plant on Fitchburg Road, the tires, and Devens.”
“There’s also a major 2-megawatt National Grid power station on Raddison Road where eight massive transformers are each oil-cooled with 3,000 gallons of oil (for a total of 24,000 gallons of oil). There is a multimillion dollar fire suppression system inside the station, but if needed outside, we’d use this foam trailer there,” he added.
Pedrazzi requested the DHS grant to purchase the foam trailer after a fire occurred at a tire reclamation yard last year.
Ayer firefighters struggled to control the fire as each tire contains about two gallons of oil. The mountain of tires had plenty of fuel and burned hotter than normal fires.
Firefighters from nearby Shirley, Littleon, Devens, Harvard, Groton, and Westford were all called in to help battle the inferno.
The fire was eventually put out after a vehicle equipped with foam arrived.
“Holden had the closest foam for that fire,” said Pedrazzi. “We wouldn’t have been able to put out that fire without it.”
Ayer’s foam trailer will be shared with fire departments in nearby towns.
Littleton fire chief Stephen Carter is glad that there will be a foam trailer on hand nearby as there is a “big highway need” for it, he said.
Carter said, “This is the only one in District 6. Otherwise I’m screaming for Hanscom” Air Force Base in Bedford.
Based on data from 2005, 10 percent of the 165,000 vehicles a day passing through the Littleton stretch of Route 2 and Interstate 495 corridors are commercial carriers loaded with thousands of gallons of chemicals.
Carter said that serious tanker accidents could occur at any moment. As evidence he pointed to a serious tanker incident two weeks ago that could have led to an explosion that required a foam trailer.
