55 Gallon Fire Extinguisher

[L47TLBwannabe]

Really think you are over engineering this.... IF you can not put fire down with the 55 gallons it's time to make the 911 call, building for the static supply and it may not be there is probably beyond the capabilities you theorizing needing...

I have on my site, 5000 gallons of water storage, a hydrant with 2.5 inch hose connection for a "engine" and 1.5 inch connection(s) for as mentioned earlier Honda pump, and gas generator to run the well incase of power failure... Living in California dead tree zone makes one think alot about fire precautions... Look up Detwiler and Ferguson and Camp fires in California.... Also thinking of 100 (maybe 200) feet of 1 inch line and nozzle that may never be needed.....Very FIRST thing to do is call 911... Rather it be false alarm than let it get away from me and it's to late....

Dale

No such thing as over engineering and you've made some wrong assumptions too. First of all I live a sparsely populated part of Canada and I often work in remote places and I can be well over an hour from the nearest Fire Hall or Initial Attack crew (they are often flown in by helicopter). 2nd of all the first thing I do is call 911 if something starts up, 3rd of all instead of waiting doing nothing I make an honest attempt at containing the fire if I can do so safely.
And as I mentioned before I spent quite a number of years as a trained VOLUNTEER FIRE FIGHTER. If you want to talk about devastating fires look at the Fort Mcmurray fire in Northern Alberta a couple years ago, or the Slave Lake, AB fire before that, and right now the High Level, AB fire or any other fire for that fact in Canada that has happened over the years.

 

[oosik]

I've lived out here in North Eastern WA state for 38 years. Our biggest threat is late summer or fall - wildfires. In all these years I've only had to experience one. I can tell you - an extinguisher of any type will only be good if you are at the exact point of origin and are QUICK. Otherwise it will be firebreaks, back firing and air borne supression.

I have all of one ten acre lake and part of a 125 acre lake on my property. During the wildfire - Watermelon Hill wildfire - the helicopters "dipped" out of my little ten acre lake.

That one wildfire showed me that even with my unlimited supply of water - ten acre lake at an average depth of 45' = ~ 150 million gallons of water - only aerial suppression would stand a chance.

I grabbed my dog - important papers - drove to my neighbors. Fortunately - the local farmers, their large tractors and disk harrows - a firebreak was established that quelled this wildfire.

 

[N2DFire]

I'm not putting a foam system on my set up most Departments around here only put that on pumpers, tankers, and some wildland units but we usually have enough lakes, streams, creeks, and swamps to draft from....

First of all - very nice project - I like it.

As a fellow Firefighter of 30+ years, Fire Instructor, Semi-amateur truck designer, part time tinkerer (and generally all around nice guy ) - I would concur. For what you're planning to do & use this for, a foam injection system is a little much and a full blown CAFS system (while awesome) would be way overkill.

There are really only 2 basic uses for foam on a Class A fire in a wildland / urban interface setting.
1) To "stretch" water supply by adding air to the finished product (which also increases the surface area of the water and thus increases the heat absorption capabilities)
2) To act as a surfactant which allows better absorption / penetration of the water itself into the class A material.


The only one that would really benefit you would be #2 and you can easily (and cheaply) achieve the same results by "batch mixing" your foam concentrate directly into the water tank. Now you have premixed Class A foam on the intake side of the pump instead of trying to proportion / injection mix on the discharge side of the pump.

In our area the departments tend to favor this brand Class A Foam - Phos-Chek but for home use - dish soap works just as well.

At a 0.1 to 1% mix ratio - assuming you have a true full 55 gallons - that's 7 to 70 oz of dish soap. So grab the biggest bottle of "El Cheapo" at the dollar store and dump it into your water tank and voila you are now a Class A foam rig.

** Side note - add water first and soap last. Unless you also want a bubble machine :laughing:



Best of luck & be safe brother.

 

[shawnspeed]

I have a portable Fire extinguisher I built out of propane tank , that was out of date. Its a 20# grille size , holds 4-5 gallons of water , and is charged with shop air to 60-70 psi.... you could do the same with a 100# tank or 2 and get your 55 gal capacity, and not have the worry of a pump.. except the air compressor for the initial charge... cost all of about 20 bucks to make.. basically you tank the original valve out, install a 1/2 " pipe nipple, then a tee, off the top of the Tee you put a 1/2" hose barb with 1/2npt threads on the outside, and a 1/2 copper sweat connection on the inside... sweat on a 1/2" pex barb, measure the distance to the bottom of the tank to the Tee fitting, minus 1/2-3/4" . Now slide this in the top of the tee and tighten. get a ball valve to go in the other opening of the Tee , and install a air fitting to fit your air compressors quick coupler ... open ball valve, charge with air , close valve... I usually fill tank 2/3. or a little more with water before charging with air...Propane tanks are made to handle over 400PSI , so even 100 from a compressor should not bother it...has worked great for me ... oh , and I saw this in a Farm Shop Magazine years ago... save those expensive round bailers when they catch on fire... they were hanging 100# cylinders off the front of the haying tractors , with a garden hose and nozzle...