Thursday, March 12, 2009

About retardant, foams and water enhancers: part 2

The USFS has a great deal of information about the various wildfire chemicals -- retardants, foams, and water enhancers that you can access through their wildfire chemical systems page. I will let you explore at your leisure if you care to. However, I do want to include one piece of information for each of the three types of chemicals. That is a sheet listing the different brands they use and how they are used (SEATs, multi-engine tankers, helicopters, engines). I found this information interesting and I thought that you might too. Note that I am writing about how this chemicals are used in aerial firefighting by SEATs and/or multi-engine tankers. Note that all of these sheets require a pdf viewer.

One of the manufacturers that the U.S. Forest Service contracts with for wildfire chemicals is a company called Phos-chek. They have webpages for each of the three different types of wildfire chemicals with some good information on how each is used. So as to not show any favoritism, Firetrol makes all three types of chemicals. And there is thermo gel, a water enhancer.

Retardants

Long-Term Retardants—U.S.D.A. Forest Service
Phos-chek retardant

Foams

Class A Foams—U.S.D.A. Forest Service
Phos-check class A foam

Water Enhancers

Water Enhancers—U.S.D.A. Forest Service
Phos-chek water enhancing gel

Some of the links on this page are to USDA Forest Service webpages. I think that they may be doing some site maintenance and/or updates to their server. I had some difficulty accessing their site earlier today. So, if the links don't work, check back later and they may work. All links worked as of 5:45 PM EDT on March 12.

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