Wettability and extinguishing power of different wetting composition for wildland fire fighting

Abstract

Extinguishing fires of forests is a serious problem for fire services since vast areas can be involved in a relatively short time. For extinguishing fire of forests and peat-bogs is indispensable employment of wetting agents, which by its specificity multiplies speed of penetration burning material. Water is the most frequently used extinguishing agent, but when it is used to extinguish the fires of forests, shrubs, peat-bogs or wildland its efficiency is poor because of its weak capacity to wet and penetrate the cracks of the hydrophobic forest floor. The extinguishing efficiency can be enhanced by adding extinguishing concentrates which reduce the water surface tension. The optimum solution is to use wetting extinguishing agents which hamper the development of a fire by reducing the rate of the fire spread and the combustion intensity. Wetting agent are mixtures of many components inclusive of surfactants, which are well soluble in water and which lower surface tension value of aqueous solutions and boost ability of solution to wetting of surface hydrophobic material. When added to water, those compounds improve its fire extinguishing properties, and thus improve efficiency of rescue actions. Wetting agents are assigned for extinguishing fire of wood (forest) and peat-bogs, cotton, coal and other smoldering and glowing fires. This study presents the results of laboratory tests of wetting compositions. The purpose of this study was to determine the wetting power, adsorbing power and extinguishing tests for the wetting agents intended to fight forest fires.