AFFF Quells Gasoline Fire, Big Streams Hit Exposures
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Immediate use of master streams and later aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) handled a gasoline and exposure fire that followed the collision of a semi-trailer gasoline tanker and a milk truck in Cranford, N.J.
The alarm—for a vehicle fire—was received at 5:40 a.m. last Aug. 24. The crash was at South and Centennial Aves., at the eastern edge of the business district in the community of 30,000 people with a fire department consisting of 31 career fire fighters (a captain, a lieutenant and five fire fighters on duty) and 19 call men.
An overhead railroad bridge was north of the intersection. A gasoline service station was on the northeast corner, another service station on the southwest corner, a park on the southwest corner, and a vegetable store on the northwest corner. North of the vegetable store was a beauty salon. The vegetable store and the beauty salon became fire exposures.
Instantaneous ignition
The gasoline tanker was approaching the intersection on Centennial Ave., heading north. The dairy truck was proceeding west on South Ave. The dairy truck collided with the midsection of the tanker, splitting the truck and spilling the gasoline onto the street.
There was instantaneous ignition and the driver of the milk truck was killed. The driver of the tanker escaped and he was treated at a local hospital for shock and released. The intersection is on a slight incline so the escaping gasoline flowed in a northerly direction down the street and into a storm sewer which emptied into the Rahway River. The gasoline that burned on the river was allowed to burn out as there were no exposures.
The damage to the milk truck was severe. The cab was fully involved in flames and badly damaged by the impact. The tanker, fully loaded with 8500 gallons of gasoline, came to rest on the northerly side of the intersection with a large hole torn in its side and a good portion of the discharge and vapor recovery piping torn from its undercarriage. It spilled approximately 2500 gallons of gasoline onto the road.
The vegetable store and the beauty salon, which were approximately 75 feet from the collision, were ignited by the radiant heat. The exterior wood trim started to burn and the fire extended to the interior of the two buildings.
Mutual aid requested
That was the scene that we pulled up to. Captain Frankenberger and three fire fighters were in Engine 1 (a 1250-gpm pumper) and two men in Engine 2 (a 250-gpm minipumper) heading east on South Ave. I was in Car 1 on North Ave., just north of the railroad bridge.
At 5:42 a.m., Frankenberger put in a 703, which is a general alarm, and I requested two mutual aid pumpers and a foam truck from a nearby refinery. The command post was quickly established on the southerly side of the fire. It was immediately determined that lives were involved, but, because of the magnitude of the fire, there was no chance for rescue. I ordered master streams to be used and water was quickly placed to protect and extinguish the fires in the exposures.
On the west side, Engine 1, the first on the scene, put its piped deck gun into service on the fruit store. Engine 2 had to relocate around the fire and take a position on the east side. Its deck gun protected the Getty Service Station.
Deck gun used
The first arriving men from the oncall cover-up platoon responded with Engine 4, a 1000-gpm pumper, and positioned it on the south side of the fire. The deck gun was put into service on the rear of the tank truck and a 1 3/4-inch hand line off Engine 4 extinguished the fire in the milk truck cab.
An officer was sent to the north side of the fire to meet the incoming mutual aid engines from Westfield and Union and position them with master streams under the railroad bridge.
As more personnel from the on-call platoon arrived at the fire station, Engine 3, a 750-gpm, 1957 reserve pumper was put into service. This was positioned on the southerly side of the fire. It dropped off its deluge gun and took a hydrant a block away to feed the deluge gun and the deck pipe on Engine 2.
We were now 25 minutes into the fire and the exposure fires had been knocked down. The running fire had burned out and the fire was contained in the area of the tank truck. Adequate manpower had arrived and we were able to put hand lines in service to complete extinguishment of the structural fires.
Attack made with AFFF
At this time, it was decided that we couldn’t wait for the incoming foam truck from the refinery and we would attempt extinguishment with the 45 gallons of AFFF we had on our apparatus. The line was set up and the AFFF cans gathered and we were ready to go. The order was given to all units to shut down their water spray as the foam was being put into operation. The tanker had split in half almost immediately, so we actually had two separate contained fires and some ground fire surrounding the tank truck.
The ground fire had been extinguished along with the rear half of the tank truck when the eductor siphon tube broke. We had to shut down and replace the eductor with one from another engine. The blanket of AFFF prevented reignition and in a short time, the front half of the tank truck was extinguished. The time of total extinguishment was 6:23 a.m., 43 minutes from the time the alarm was received.
We used 37 gallons of 6 percent AFFF concentrate. There was approximately 2000 gallons of gasoline left in the shell of the tank after extinguishment and it remained covered with AFFF for several hours after extinguishment—until the gasoline could be pumped off. The cleanup operation went on into the evening.
