Marine 3's distinct advantages to fire fighting
Mosmart was very honored that Gresham (SMS) Ltd, chaired by Sir Ken Knight, provided an independent overview and validation of using our Marine 3 (M3T) product for firefighting purposes.
The tests were conducted at an independent location: The Fire Service College, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, UK. The College, is an acknowledged centre of excellence for the UK and International Fire Service, providing world class incident ground training facilities supported by expert instructors.
By using the Fire Service College, it enabled M3T to be evaluated through the full range of fire behaviour classes by trained fire professionals in a neutral test centre environment. The tests were conducted under the direction of Gresham (SMS) Limited, supervised by former Chief Fire Officer, Simon Routh-Jones, QFSM. The tests were designed to compare both a water attack and a conventional firefighting medium against Marine 3005, developed to reduce the time taken to extinguish a fire and, the levels of smoke and pollutants.
In total, five test scenarios were undertaken to capture a wide range of fire classes:
• Pallet Fires within a building,
• Straw Fires within a building which also assessed the penetration effectiveness of M3T,
• Vehicle Fires,
• Tyre Fires,
• Oils/Fuel Fire.
The scenarios were chosen to reflect the incidents that a firefighter would regularly encounter and where M3T could be adequately compared against other mediums as an alternative method of extinguishing a fire.
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The opinion of all involved was that M3T tackled the fires more effectively than conventional water or foam. Although the Oil / Fuel test was marginal, M3T had the distinct advantages in reducing the toxins caused by smoke, restricted re-ignition and of course M3T is biodegradable unlike the chemical foams most normally used for this type of fire.
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“The fire-fighting team was particularly impressed with the speed that Marine 3005 tackled the tyre fire scenario as they can be hazardous and difficult to deal with. M3T appears to have a unique characteristic of being able to extract the toxic chemicals produced from the breakdown of synthetic rubber compound within the smoke”.
In the other tests the primary benefits were rapid extinguishing and less water needed to be applied. Within the scenarios set to test M3T, it was evident that there was a reasonable temperature drop on application. More significantly however, it was recognised that on the application of M3T that there was a notable increase in visibility around the fire, thus enabling a greater ability to attack the fire at source. This was particularly evident with the tyre fire which, on application of M3T, instantly reduced the large amount of particulate matter pollution. This would therefore provide a safer environment for firefighting and expedites the extinguishing of the fire whilst reducing risk to firefighting personnel.
M3T would alleviate the dilemma faced by firefighters of which medium to use on a specific fire incident. It is apparent from the tests that M3T works effectively when being delivered at low pressures which would be a distinct advantage when looking at a smaller response vehicle configuration. The wider benefit would be that it could be introduced into a greater variety of firefighting vehicles reducing firefighting time, whilst also being environmentally friendly.
The chemicals from a tyre fire usually remain within the fire area but when extinguished with M3T, only the vapour from the fire is released into the atmosphere. The opinion of Gresham SMS Ltd is that M3T (Marine 3) is a safe, efficient, and effective product and would benefit the Fire and Rescue Services through application as a ‘one stop shop’ or a ‘stop the clock’ product.
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Due to the increased risks of several types of cancers caused by exposure to firefighting foam, such as prostate cancer, testicular cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer, leukemia, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and multiple myelomas, countries like the UK and Australia are fully committed to stop the usages of foam products in firefighting within the next two years.
Marine 3 outperforms traditional foam and excessive water usage in firefighting and the time it takes to put out the fire, offering additional benefits like:
• Non-toxicity,
• Environmentally friendliness,
• Smoke reduction with visibility improvement (90% of casualties in fires are due to smoke inhalation and suffocation).
• Emissions reduction,
• Water saving.
• Ease of use and application.
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