In 2001, Fire Chief published an article on the Los Angeles County Fire Department's controlled tests of water versus Class A foam in firefighting. With more than 70,000 copies in print, "Bubbles Beat Water" is the most widely reproduced article in the magazine's history.

Eight years later, we followed-up with the department and Capt. Darryl Dutton, who was instrumental in the development of the department's standard operating procedures for Class A foam use. Dutton started as a department mechanic and was appointed to LACFD's apparatus committee. After he became a firefighter, Dutton was re-appointed to the apparatus committee, as well as the equipment development committee. He became further involved with the integration of Class A foam systems on LACFD's apparatus. He currently is a member of Southern California Incident Management Team III as a foam specialist for structure protection.

Twenty years ago, the LACFD successfully used Class A foam for wildland fires and became one of the first major departments to use both naturally aspirated foam and compressed-air foam for exterior attacks.

“From the first fires we went on, the results were immediately evident. The production was so much better and the safety levels were higher,” said Dutton. “We would have [previously] had a water tender to finish up and we would have been [on scene] three times longer.”

During the Malibu, Calif., fires in the late '80s then Chief Engineer P. Michael Freeman was on scene and watched the crews use Class A foam system to quickly extinguish fires along the Pacific Coast Highway. After Freeman saw firsthand that Class A foam could outperform water while increasing firefighter safety, he campaigned for foam systems on more apparatus.

“In 1991-92, we retrofitted 80 to 90 engines with Class A foam systems. On the next purchase of apparatus in 1993, all engines would come with automatic Class A foam proportioning systems,” Dutton said. “Every engine in our whole fleet has Class A foam and double from the tests in 2001.”

The LACFD tests featured in the July 2001 article were conducted in Palmdale, Calif., at a condemned housing development. Tests were conducted on three 1-story, wood-framed, single-family dwellings, each with identical six-room floor plans, furniture and contents. Equipment and procedures were standard on each test and rigorously documented, and data was collected by an outside agency.

The test results confirmed that CAF was superior to either water or a Class A foam/water solution for interior attacks. The fire was knocked down in 25 seconds with a Class A foam/water solution, compared with 50 seconds with water. CAF cut that figure to 11 seconds, making it roughly four times more effective than water in terms of knockdown time.

In addition to the faster knock down, foam outscored water in terms of gallons used. It took 75 gallons of plain water to knock down the fire, compared with 44 gallons of water with Class A foam added and 16 gallons of water and CAF added.

Last year, during Southern California's wildland fires, John Tripp, the LACFD's special operations deputy chief, organized a CAFS task force to assist in structure protection. According to Dutton, the LACFD uses a burning index, or BI, to determine when to deploy the task-force teams for structure protection. The burning index is an estimate of the potential difficulty of fire control as a function of how fast and how hot a fire could burn. It has been scaled so that the index value divided by 10 predicts the flame length at the head of a fire. For example, a BI of 75 would predict a flame length of 7H feet.

“The response would not change, the jurisdictional battalion chief would still get his full brush response and get CAFS task-force teams,” Dutton said. “It would take the stress out by sending out the task-force team and, instead, the chief could worry about getting ahead of the wildland fire.”

The success of Class A foam and CAFS in the LACFD, according to Dutton, is largely due to repeated training exercises and the use of Class A foam every day in a variety of incidents. With thousands of fire calls every year, Class A foam gives the LACFD the ability to quickly knock down structures during overhaul and for wildland fires.

“The SOP for the department is that Class A foam gets put on every fire; there is no excuse. The department's engineers are tested on it when they go through their promotional process. It's in our books on what percentages of foam to use,” Dutton said.

The LACFD found the unexpected benefit of a significant decrease in response for rekindles. Firefighters would return to a fire that previously was declared out because it still was smoldering, however; Class A foam eliminated the rekindle calls because of the penetration of the solution.

“We had to go through the learning curve and turn everything over to let the foam do the work for us, but you still need to get in and do the turn,” Dutton said. “When the guys would practice with it and learn it, it works really, really well.”

California was one of the first environmentally conscious states and Class A foam offers several green benefits.

"The amount of time the apparatus is running on scene is greatly reduced, as well as the amount of time before we come back to the station is reduced," Dutton explained. "It's not only extinguishing the fire safer and quicker, but [also] the green angle. We're running our equipment a lot less because we are so much more effective."

Dutton said that while runoff has not been a big issue in his area, communities are cautious about draining into streams and the ocean.

"All runoff is bad. If you look at all the combustion and by-products in the run-off from a fire in a single-family home, it's bad. It's all the plastics, carbon and synthetics," Dutton said. "Second-hand cigarette smoke has 36 known carcinogens. What's in the carpet and chairs that are burning? What's the second-hand smoke from that and the stuff that's going out in the water?"

Less water used means less water damage. As a Class A foam instructor, Dutton teaches about the thermo balance and using foam. "If you had a firefighter who knew what he was doing and shut the nozzle off at black-out … we would find very small amounts of water."

When the use of foam was first introduced, the local union protested over concerns about losing firefighter positions; however, the increased firefighter safety aspects lessened the concerns. For example, with the introduction of the compressed-air foam system, firefighters were able to stand further from the fire.

Dutton said the biggest benefit of using Class A foam is firefighter safety, e.g., the quick knockdown and the lack of rekindle. "A firefighter doesn't have to worry about advancing and something kicking him in the back," he said.

What is the biggest obstacle Dutton has encountered in his department and teaching classes about Class A foam?

"The mindset of more is better," he said. "Class A foam doesn't work in that arena and that was one of the major obstacles in our department, that the guys felt more would be better."

Concerns from arson investigators about the use of Class A foam were addressed directly. "That's a common and hot topic. We worked with some of the arson investigators on our department and showed them what we do," Dutton said. "In the case of the CAFS, their scene was fully intact when we were done. The arson investigators found an accelerant didn't wash away. We've been doing this now since the late '80s."

The LACFD is currently experimenting with the use of gels in their response. Dutton is surprised at the push for gels. While he believes in gels, particularly the second-generation gels, he isn't sure they have a place in everyday operations or large fire departments.

"I understand Europeans are experimenting with some formulation of a gel product for day-to-day firefighting," he said. "Gel can be slippery and if it gets on your face mask, you'll need to wipe it off. Also, the stuff never goes away and it goes into the ground or concrete."

Dutton sees a trend in California of gel manufacturers participating in wildland expositions and conferences to reach residents in a community. He believes fire departments are failing by not participating in these events and explaining what they do in the event of a fire.

"Departments need to go and tell the community what they do. ICS have structure-protection specialists on their teams and they know what tools to use where and when," Dutton said.

And if Dutton had only three minutes to convince a chief to use Class A foam?

"I'd talk about soap," he said. "We use Class A foam for the same reason you use soap. Class A foam is soap and we use it for the same reason you use it to wash your clothes, take a shower or wash your car — it makes water work better. If I've got five minutes, I'll get a piece of cardboard and a syringe with plain water and a syringe with foam water. The plain water will bead up and run off, while the foam solution will instantly penetrate and spread. It's a visual graphic."

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