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Episode 56 - F3 Master Class - Exploring the New Foam & How it Performed on an F-35 Crash - Austin Perry
143 Plays8 days ago
Fluorine Free Foam (F3) has officially replaced AFFF across the Department of Defense fire service - but what does that really mean for firefighters on the line?
In this episode, Matt and Chris sit down with Austin Perry, a Staff Sergeant and Company Officer at Eielson Air Force Base, who brings firsthand operational experience using F3 during two major aircraft responses - an F-35 crash and an F-16 mishap in 2025.
Austin shares insights from both real-world incidents and formal training at the Dallas-Fort Worth Fire Training Research Center, breaking down the science, limitations, and tactical adjustments needed to apply F3 in the field effectively.
From foam chemistry and nozzle techniques to weather effects and decision-making under pressure, this episode dives deep into the technical side of firefighting’s newest challenge: mastering F3.
To explore Austin’s training videos and F3 resources, visit firedawg.us and check out Episode 56.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
anyone would wonder this is the firedog
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome, my name is Matt Wilson. joined with Chris Boikley. Thank you for joining us for episode 56 of the Fire Dog Podcast. In this episode, we sit down with Austin Perry, a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force and a company officer Allison Air Force Base, Alaska.
00:00:26
Speaker
Austin has invested a lot into learning about F3, or fluorine-free foam, and has first-hand real-world experience applying foam during aircraft mishaps while stationed at Ileson.
00:00:37
Speaker
Austin responded to an F-35 crash in January 2025 and F-16 in the summer of 2025 on both occasions. and the summer of twenty twenty five on both occasions F3 was applied, giving him invaluable first-hand knowledge of its effectiveness.
00:00:52
Speaker
He's also attended Dallas-Fort Worth's Fire Training Research Center F3 foam course, where he received formal training on the science and application techniques of F3. To learn more about F3 and to watch training videos provided by Austin, head over to our website, firedog.us, find episode 56.
00:01:08
Speaker
There you will find links to training resources and videos highlighting F3's performance and application techniques.
Austin Perry's Air Force Journey and F3 Foam Experience
00:01:15
Speaker
It is my pleasure to welcome back to the podcast, Austin Perry.
00:01:20
Speaker
Austin, welcome back. What's up, brother? It's good to have you. Yeah. Three-time guest, returning guest. Hell yeah. So before we get into the episode, remind the listeners who you are, where you've been, and any other details that you'd like to share.
00:01:36
Speaker
Cool. I'm Staff Sergeant Austin Perry. I've been in the Air Force for coming up almost 10 years. It'll be 10 years early next year. I started out at Shaw and currently here in Isleson. And then two deployments, Africa and Qatar. So other than that, that's all everywhere i've been.
00:01:58
Speaker
That's it, man? 30 seconds, that's all you yeah Yeah, man. I don't, I mean. He's a young guy. I'm not special. You're definitely special. little bit. So F3 firefighting foam and like, so so a staff sergeant at Ileson, why are you the guy talking to us about F3 foam?
00:02:17
Speaker
Uh, well, I would call myself lucky, I suppose. Um, lucky that my organization sent me to down to Dallas and got some really, really eyeopening training.
00:02:29
Speaker
um And then before that, I even got that training, actually got to use it in real life on the F-35 crash back in January. Was part of the first due rescue company on that call um due to the cold and stuff.
00:02:46
Speaker
We had crash trucks had some complications with stretching the line and stuff, which allowed me to kind of sneak over there and end up grabbing the nozzle and getting after it whenever we got everything set up. So.
00:02:59
Speaker
being able to just have that first use or firsta first-hand experience on the on the line. And so with that kind of led me whenever i went, so I did it real life, and then I actually went to the training.
00:03:17
Speaker
um and then once I went to the training and it being so eye-opening and kind of seeing some of the stuff ah that the foam can do, because that's been the narrative, right, the whole time is like,
00:03:28
Speaker
yeah, we know f three' is not as effective and we know that it's, you know, um not as good, but why is it not as good? And so having a little bit deeper understanding kind of was allowed me to start really digging into some of this stuff and then starting to connect some of the dots, basically.
00:03:51
Speaker
What kind of stuff were you doing in Dallas at that training? So Dallas, they, Dallas-Fort Worth Fire Department, they host the F3 class. They actually have a very phenomenal training center. They do all kinds of classes.
00:04:05
Speaker
um I actually think we're going, they have like an advanced ARF course. We're sending some guys down there just to check it out and see if it has any value or not. But um the F3 course, they are kind of like leading the way or have been leading the way with the transition course.
00:04:23
Speaker
Um, cause the FFA is also, you know, switched to most people are switching to because, you know, cancer and the environment and stuff. Um, but mainly it's just to a, you know, kind of go over what the best, what they found is best practice, uh,
00:04:42
Speaker
see some of the equipment that they've kind of tested and found to be the best. And then a just being able to use it and see what it's like and like you know on the hard pack surface.
00:04:56
Speaker
see how it reacts, see how it, you know, aerates and expands.
Challenges and Innovations in F3 Foam Training
00:05:01
Speaker
And then they, you know, light a fuel fire for you. And then you can kind of see some of these things or they can kind of try and recreate depending on how windy it is. There, it windy, super windy the day that I went.
00:05:14
Speaker
Also see how the reach and the, you know, the weather, how that kind of impacts the, the throw of the foam. But mainly they can kind of recreate some of the,
00:05:25
Speaker
if you want to call them hostile or safety concerns, um so you can see in real time what they look like. So it's it's a pretty invaluable experience.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, so you have the 35 crash. You have a 16 mishap, which we didn't mention. but You were on that, right? i I responded. i got recalled for it. So i got to kind of I got there in time. They were still out there.
00:05:55
Speaker
more in the overhaul stage, but got to pick those guys brain. But I, when they were cutting up the first 35, they were the recovery team or whatever was using saws on it, or I don't know what they do, but, um, anyway, essentially they re caught the 35 completely on fire.
00:06:14
Speaker
if not bigger the second time than the first time, um, because it had time there, there was some dispatching problems and, um, I think they ended up like calling Fairbanks 911 because they couldn't get a hold of R911. So I had like 10 minutes to sit there and burn.
00:06:31
Speaker
So it was it was cooking. So I got to be the first to crash. I was actually the first company officer on that call as well. So then we redid the whole thing over again, basically.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that, man. It was at the end of the day. and I mean, I'm on Ielson. I was on Ielson at the time. I could see from my house. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we heard, like, panic on, like, because I guess they were using our radios or whatever.
00:06:59
Speaker
And, like, I just heard some dude, like, panic on the radio. And, like it wasn't, like, normal fire department, like, talk. It was just, like, someone really muffled screaming, basically.
00:07:11
Speaker
um Because they had basically, you know, it was, they caught, they had been having little small spot fires when they would cut it up. And then you you think about cutting a fuel-soaked jet, it just went, pfft.
00:07:23
Speaker
and And so anyway, we're like, that was weird. And we're all sitting in the kitchen. and then they, you know, dispatch it out a few minutes later. And like I open up the stall doors and there's just this giant smoke plume. I'm like, oh, it's on fire on fire, not like a little tiny fire.
00:07:40
Speaker
So it was a instant, instantaneous go, go mode. Yeah. So yeah, anyways, 35 and then 35 rekindled, which is a couple months later. 16, which you weren't directly a part of, but you were there and, you know, within the organization that had to experience it. So, and then you had the Dallas class that you just mentioned.
00:08:02
Speaker
And you also, did you dig into anything else? um Yeah. So, sorry, not to cut you off. um When the 16 happened, they, you know, they sent a bunch of the big dogs down to interview that ah whole shift.
00:08:17
Speaker
And then Chief wanted me to basically brief, because the other two incidents had happened on B-Shift, so kind of was like the B-Shift representative, um kind of briefed some of the Chiefs on that.
00:08:28
Speaker
um And I could ah had already started kind of, well, A, I was like, once I went to Dallas, it was like really eye-opening because I was like, I completely did.
00:08:40
Speaker
Granted, I got away and the incident was a situation that didn't put myself in a bad spot. But like if that had been on the runway or say the pilot was closer or whatever, I would have done everything probably wrong and could have potentially put myself in harm's way just because I didn't know.
00:09:02
Speaker
And so i once I got that information, i was like, I need to put this together in a package for everybody that hasn't gone to this class so they can have the information.
00:09:15
Speaker
um And so then Chief Winkleman, he brought up that, you know, we have a CBT for this stuff. You know, it was kind of like the best way, best course of action that we had at the time.
00:09:27
Speaker
So he kind of asked me, okay, would you mind combing through and kind of making suggestions? And that's kind of where the presentation came from. um I had taken all these videos at Dallas.
00:09:38
Speaker
I had started combing through the Navy, the Naval Research Study. um I'd started combing through the Air Force CBT. It's like the firefighting tactics CBT.
00:09:49
Speaker
And so it wasn't that every, like the information was good, but it'd be like one of them had this was good, one of them, this was good. And then one of them like no one had the complete picture because no one had used it in real life yet.
00:10:04
Speaker
And so it was kind of like taking the goods from all of those and putting them in one central place. And that's basically how that happened. Yeah, I'm glad you
Understanding F3 Foam and Decision-Making in Firefighting
00:10:14
Speaker
covered all that, man. So what um for the listeners, what I'm trying to you know show is that Austin knows what he's talking about and he has the experience.
00:10:23
Speaker
Not to say that he's the only one that knows what he's talking about. I'm sure there's others out there that have experience with this stuff that we don't know about and that have invested in training and and trying to understand it or maybe even went to Dallas. ah Just trying to you know show that he does have expert power before we start talking about the intricacies of it, the tactics to employ and things like that because this stuff, and if you take any point away from this episode, is F3 and AFFF are not the same thing. I think everybody understands that, but maybe not to the extent that we should understand that.
00:10:57
Speaker
With AFFF, you can throw it on a fire however you want and it's going to do it's going to do what it does, right? It has the but you the filament or the surfactant that is going to take care of those fuel vapors that are, you know, not going to ignite where the F3 doesn't do that. And so that's why we put this episode together. That's why we brought Austin on.
00:11:22
Speaker
The fluorinated surfactant. Yeah. So Austin, when you hit us with, you know, you, you mentioned after the fact, you kind of learned, Oh, like I, maybe I should have done this or there was just kind of a disconnect in your brain having been trained with a triple F now using F3 for the first time. What were some of those, ah kind of lessons learned? Eyeopening kind of information. Yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
Um, mainly the resealing properties, um, and, Well, A, just like without the film, this stuff can do, the vapors and the breakdown of the foam can lead to you getting flanked by the fire.
00:12:09
Speaker
And so, and even with your your feet or your hose, and you're trying to say you're trying to make a rescue path or you're, you know, actively engaging this and you're entering into the blanket,
00:12:24
Speaker
um without knowing, you know, some of these things or seeing some of these things, like you could potentially put yourself in a bad way because, you know, you're you're trying to advance into this blanket and now you put you thought you had put the fire out to your right, but maybe you had blanket breakdown or maybe it tunneled under under the blanket without that film to suppress the vapors and now you're getting flanked from your right and now you've got a completely, you know,
00:12:52
Speaker
change what you're doing or you're you know in a fire so it's just some of that stuff would because with a triple f i'm in my mindset like you know bird goes down or the pilots and they're like i'm gonna try and do everything that i can do to get to get to that guy and you know i'm just you know going into the fray basically um and not saying that you can't do that with f3 but you got to be a little more intelligent um and be able to you know know when what's good and what's bad um to make that intuitive or that smart judgment call
00:13:37
Speaker
It all really stems back to AFFF. We got bubbles and foam. F3, we just got bubbles, right? it's It's losing that film that's a game changer when it comes to application, extinguishment.
00:13:51
Speaker
Right. And um basically also understanding the difference. Like you said, the bubble makeup as well is different. And so when you can kind of see, because the F3 bubbles are all kind of more uniform and they're all in like a linear line and they kind of stack up on top of each other.
00:14:10
Speaker
And so when you see the, the, the degradation of a blanket, right. And I have pictures and you can kind of see it or be able to see it in real life.
00:14:22
Speaker
Um, you kind of start to draw the line of like, oh, the reason it's starting to sink down lower and lower or starting to flatten out is because those bubbles are bursting.
00:14:34
Speaker
And so every time they burst due to direct flame impingement, your blanket's not as thick. As to where AFFF, you had like big bubbles, little bubbles, and the bubble structure was completely different, but that film was allowed to protect that and suppress everything.
00:14:55
Speaker
So we highlighted a lot of the difference between AFFF and f three And again, I think people understand that they're different. And we're going to talk about why they're different. Talk to us about, you sent us a presentation ahead of this podcast, and you you mentioned recognition prime decision making. And some people may be familiar with that. I know Chris is certainly familiar with that.
00:15:15
Speaker
ah the you know creating that mental model, connect the dots for us on why you have that within this presentation you created. i I could probably talk ah do a whole other podcast on this, and I'm sure you could too, Chris, but it's a very fact i'm I'm fascinated with how people make decisions, um and i'm in it being directly applied to what we do on on the daily, I think it's something that we should all be
00:15:46
Speaker
students of and practicing because like when you start digging into the sources of power which is the book of um dr gary klein and uh the rpd model and all that um like it starts to really connect the dots of like i'm doing that without really understanding that i'm doing that um you know and so just having a little bit I think when you study it and you kind of are able to implement that model, it helps you put your training into a rhythm that's understandable for other people.
00:16:23
Speaker
Because if I just give you, and i see this all the time, and i think and you know it's one of my biggest complaints to my airmen, um is they'll know the what, but they and they may necessarily, might halfway understand the how,
00:16:39
Speaker
but they don't understand the why. And so it's like your explicit memory or explicit knowledge is like, it's just overload. So when you have the RPD model and you can kind of put it into those, like you're starting to recognize the conditions and you understand what's happening and you know what to do with it, you're distilling the information down into a reaction.
00:17:01
Speaker
Because if it doesn't distill down to a reaction, I'm just overloading you with information. And then you kind of get this para ah paralysis by analysis. or And so, because you're like, is it this way? Is it that way?
00:17:14
Speaker
And so it becomes, I use the recognition prime decision making to make it more conditions driven. and then it's kind of like, if you see this, then this.
00:17:26
Speaker
You have a reaction based upon those conditions. So what's an example when it comes to, you know, extinguishing a fuel fire with F3 foam? Like what what is what does recognition prime decision make really look like?
00:17:42
Speaker
So like say, okay, I am engaging the fire and I start to see that blank. Well, a okay, there's a couple ways we could go about this. We'll just take,
00:17:56
Speaker
I start to have blanket degradation and that foam starts to flatten out. right If I see that, I know that I need to come over the top of that gently.
00:18:07
Speaker
I can't just spray it directly. I can't do like a horizontal or a roll-on because now I'm just going to blow it. and now and so With the resealing properties without the ah without the film...
00:18:19
Speaker
Two blankets or two separate applets, you can come over the top, but like if they're next to each other, they're not going to merge together. And so you get what's called seams.
00:18:29
Speaker
And so like along your leading edge of your blanket, you're going to have, say if you have two blankets butted up together, you're going to have a seam or a line in between them.
00:18:40
Speaker
So say if I have that blanket start to break down, I need to come over the top of it with like a lob or a rain down to basically patch that up.
00:18:54
Speaker
That way those vapors don't aren't able to come through and reignite. Does that make sense? Yeah, so you're you're recognizing what's happening, and then your brain is jumping to the solution to fix the problem.
00:19:09
Speaker
Right. Using recognize recognition prime decision making. I try to put everything... in a rhythm of that, if you see this, then
Training Techniques for Decision-Making Skills
00:19:21
Speaker
this.
00:19:21
Speaker
And I, obviously we lit, we exist in a job where always it nevers, we can't, you know, that would be foolish to do so. Um, so I'm not going to say like every time you see the blanket flattened down, you have to do this, but it's a good option.
00:19:38
Speaker
It's a good option or plan a, you know, um, So, and then also like Gary Klein kind of goes into like, it's one of the later later models of like the mental simulation or evaluating our actions or like, um, even you might even stick with plan A, but you have to slightly modify it or tweak it to where it's going to be multiple to that certain situation.
00:20:02
Speaker
So I think that, cause I think that's, we do that in our job quite frequently. Of like, you know, we're going to do this tactic, but we're slightly going to change it just differently to make it moldable to this situation.
00:20:18
Speaker
How do we get to the point where we have a mental Rolodex that is ready to employ foam on a jet fuel fire? so So, that's a tough question.
00:20:31
Speaker
With all of our training, it has to be realistic conditions. um And I'm not saying you're going out and setting jet fuel on fire, but we can study film. You can watch fire videos and go over, you know, what you would do and get that decision-making process.
00:20:55
Speaker
Now, I don't know how many videos on YouTube there are of jets blowing up, but you can use, it's you know John Schmidt is? I don't.
00:21:06
Speaker
So he was a major... out um Don't quote me on this. He was an officer in the Marine Corps, and he wrote some of their... I think he wrote their their Marine Corps doctrine, in war fighting.
00:21:17
Speaker
um great Great parallels to the fire service as well. But he came up with what's called TDGs, Tactical Decision Games. And you're just...
00:21:29
Speaker
you know, you could do whatever you can draw it. You could, you know, put a presentation together, but you know, you're, you're setting the situations and then you're giving people the, the conditions that you want them to see.
00:21:43
Speaker
So take a picture of an F 35 and draw squiggly red lines on it or draw, you know, squiggly red lines in front of it. Like it's, you know, fuel fire, whatever.
00:21:54
Speaker
And then you kind of take them through this you know, game, if you want to call it based upon the decisions that they make. Now, first off, as the instructor yourself, you have to understand the concept completely um in order to be able to do that. But you put somebody on a timer and you say, hey, this is what you see. What are you doing?
00:22:16
Speaker
It makes that more realistic how how it would be on the fire ground rather than they have all the time in the world. And granted, maybe it's a more junior member and you give that more junior member a little bit more time.
00:22:29
Speaker
But you say maybe it's more of a company officer. Hey, this is what you're showing up to, whether it's a house fire or whatever. And what are you doing based upon this is what you see? And then you can kind of start to identify those deficiencies.
00:22:44
Speaker
um You know, maybe hey, maybe he's not picking up on this, you know, this condition or maybe his ability to read smoke isn't it where it should be. Hey, man. And then you can kind of go into some of that, you know, education part of that.
00:23:00
Speaker
um But that's building that mental rolodex of kind connecting the dots with the conditions of the visual conditions and the decisions being made. Yeah. So to distill it down to the most basic level, it's continuous training, continuous quality and when you can realistic training.
00:23:22
Speaker
And Gord Graham talks about that. And he, in, you know, one of the more famous keynotes that he made that is, it's shown in the fire officer courses, or at least it used to be in the DOD fire officer courses, ah he talks about recognition, prime decision-making and he kind of He gets into the foundation of why that's important is because when you are faced with a high-risk, low-frequency circumstance where you don't have time to think things through, where you're in the fight-or-flight psychological mode, what does Dave Grossman call ah Condition Red? or
00:23:55
Speaker
The Amidula Hijack? What's that? Amygdala hijack. Amygdala hijack. It's Cooper's code of awareness, Jeff Cooper's code of awareness. I think that he was also Marine.
00:24:08
Speaker
But the point is that you don't have time now. to let me let Let me think about what I'm going to do here. Right. What situation. You are doing whatever is imprinted on your brain. And how do you imprint that stuff on your brain?
00:24:20
Speaker
You continuously, every day, think through and train through when the conditions are calm. so that you can create that mental Rolodex, so that you instinctively react to the best of your a ability.
00:24:35
Speaker
And of course, not everybody has an F-35 burning in their backyard. it's You can't do it to the greatest extent possible, unfortunately. And even bases don't have jet fuel burners. Most of them don't, because environmental restrictions.
00:24:50
Speaker
But to your point earlier, there's videos on this stuff. There's classes in Dallas. There's computer-based training for what it's worth. There's probably some good nuggets to be pulled out of that. and for you know Fortunately, Austin has had the experience, and he's been able to
Practical Experiences and Tacit Knowledge in Firefighting
00:25:06
Speaker
see it real world. He's been to Dallas where they they can burn jet fuel and show how F3 works. so There's videos out there, and i'm going to put those videos, and I'm going accompany them with this episode, on our website, firedog.us.com.
00:25:21
Speaker
So you can head over there and and look at some of the – I'm going to put on some of the but the tactics, the roll-on and you know ah stitching and and things like that.
00:25:33
Speaker
going to get those videos on there. so Yeah, that's very important. um Just to wrap this up before we move on, though, it's kind of like ah back to the when we talked about tacit knowledge. We deal with a large amount of tacit knowledge in our job, right?
00:25:48
Speaker
um So tacit knowledge is basically – knowledge that you gain from experience. And we we are faced with what's known as the tacit knowledge transfer project problem.
00:26:00
Speaker
And so it's you may not you may know how to do something. You know how to ride a bike, but explaining how to ride a bike to your kid is a difficult task. It's the articulation of the information is what's difficult. and that comes back to our instruction.
00:26:15
Speaker
um So you if you have the experience, whatever it may be, you have to do your do your best to be able to put that or distill that information down to somebody that doesn't have a frame of reference that it triggers a reaction.
00:26:38
Speaker
And so that becomes to like the explicit, like knowing what, implicit knowing how, but tacit knowledge is knowing how in action. So that's that ability to have the intuition of like judging things or like based upon the cues and patterns.
00:26:55
Speaker
That's kind of why rick the RPD model is good. You can kind of go over those cues and patterns. Hey, if you're seeing these things, this is what's likely going to happen based upon, you know, um you know just knowing that those are, you know, precursors to that event.
00:27:14
Speaker
um And then... So task knowledge is just like knowing how in action. Oh, perceiving rate of change. That's where I was going with that. Of knowing this is being effective right now. Whatever I'm doing, my decision that I made is being effective. I'm getting positive return on investment.
00:27:34
Speaker
I know Chris will like that. um Or this isn't working. It's not having a positive effect on the fire ground. I need to pivot. to plan a or plan b or modify plan a okay i think a a brutal reality when it comes to aircraft firefighting in general is that the majority of our mental models and our muscle memory it's all for structural firefighting right right which is we're flowing with the nozzle wide open at the seat of the fire circle pattern u pattern whatever it might be right
00:28:10
Speaker
Which is totally wrong when it comes to applying foam. And that hasn't really changed, right? where You're supposed to roll on, bank down a triple F, but that film made it way more forgiving where we could kind of use our structural techniques and it still put the fire out. Yeah. Yep.
00:28:27
Speaker
But with f three to To lay a blanket down where you're straight streaming the ground in front of the fire, like that feels totally unnatural. Right. Because that that is not the way we would extinguish ah a structural fire, which is the way we're all kind of primed to think.
00:28:45
Speaker
Kind of that sink to your lowest level of training. Right. Yeah. And so i I mean, obviously, what Matt said is spot on where that's what we got to combat when it comes to like our decision making and like sucking every consuming every bit of training we possibly can when it comes to watching videos and everything, because in the heat of the moment.
00:29:09
Speaker
it's going to take everything that that we've got to hopefully react appropriately you know to apply the foam in the most efficient manner because we've got everything inside of us that's going to ah
00:29:22
Speaker
have us you know use structural firefighting techniques when that's not the most effective way to apply foam. Yeah, man. that Well, it never feels good, too, when you don't have a mental a framework for a situation.
00:29:37
Speaker
And then that's when you get that paralysis by analysis because you're just starving for information to try and like lead you to some sort of decision. And then that's really when that that condition black or that panic and all that stuff, because your heart rate's immediately going to spike because you're like, dang, I have no idea what I'm doing right now.
00:29:58
Speaker
This thing's punching me in the face and I got to do something about it. mean I'm fascinated with the psychology and the physiology. It's such a deep rabbit hole. I could talk about it for hours. It really is. And that's our that's our line of work.
00:30:13
Speaker
It is. and it's That's why. that's just so We're expected to perform at top levels under those conditions. It's crazy to me.
00:30:24
Speaker
right For any yeah decision-making nerds listening, if you're like Austin and you you like to... Take a deep dive into this stuff. He mentioned Sources of Power by Gary Klein. He's considered the father of recognition, prime decision making.
00:30:40
Speaker
And a great follow on is Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Have you guys read that book? It's on my it's on my to do list mission MCTI. They mentioned that book, but I haven't haven't gotten it. So going to read it now after after you suggested it.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's interesting because they're kind of on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to decision making, where Gary Klein is on one side where um he's focused on the power of intuition and the power of you know seeing something unfold before you.
00:31:17
Speaker
recognizing you know the cues and expectancies and then instantly recognizing what needs to be done, recognition prime decision-making, where Kahneman is more focused on the errors in that kind of decision-making. And there are a ton of biases and ah just flaws that we can bring into any decision-making situation. So it's a really...
00:31:41
Speaker
um challenging thought exercise to read both books and try to distill, you know, everything that applies to our profession. there been own yeah course action Is he the guy who, he it's like the system one and system two thinking, and that's right you kind of have the net and your brain is the, you know, like a gravity model, and it's People that are good, or especially in like the tactical space, your ability to... So, like, System 1 being able like to focus in on like the task level and you know do whatever you need to do, and then System 2 being like the overall strategic pitcher.
00:32:17
Speaker
And people that are really good decision-making or makers, or their ability to swing from one to the other, i think, is like what he kind of gets at. That's what the micche Mission Critical Teams Institute is called.
00:32:32
Speaker
<unk> referencing that book but that's kind of what they go over is the ability to swing your pivot your your system between your system one and system two thinking yeah you you can summarize it with recognition recognition prime decision making is system one thinking where it's instant spontaneous on the spot system two is a much more slow and you know deeper methodical type of finding kind of yeah gotcha okay Cool.
00:33:01
Speaker
Man, still fascinated. We could do a whole episode on this stuff. Yeah, we could. And we should. But before we do that, let's you talked about, let me get this right, explicit, implicit.
00:33:13
Speaker
Intacit. Intacit. Explicit being knowing what. who Let's talk about the science then.
Comparing F3 Foam and AFFF: Challenges and Differences
00:33:22
Speaker
of the foams and how they're different. We alluded to it a little bit and it's not going to take much really to cover this, I don't think, but I want to just cover how scientifically they're different in, in, in layman's terms, really. I mean, you can use it to impress some folks, but then after that, I want to talk about,
00:33:40
Speaker
Transition into the why it's dangerous, right? Why F3 is maybe more dangerous than AFFF. Gotcha. So, yeah, we did talk about it. ah Obviously, the AFFF foam makeup is different. The bubbles are different sizes and it's kind of I have a picture of it and it looks a lot more sporadic.
00:33:58
Speaker
Um, but the biggest part being the, uh, fluorinated surfactant that would drain down from those bubbles and cause the film. And it would kind of cause the blanket to basically seal back up, um, is the biggest thing. But that, uh, fluorinated surfactant was what was the...
00:34:17
Speaker
What was the worst part for us and the environment? So that kind of had to go away. um So then with F3, the bubble structure being more linear and stacked on top of each other without that, could...
00:34:31
Speaker
a In order, without that fluorinated surfactant, to be able to suppress and smother the fuel, ah you need a bigger, robust blanket of F3 to be able to suppress those vapors that are coming down from the fuel.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, Chris said it perfectly. A-Triple-S was more forgiving. and when We could get away with not really knowing much, to be completely honest, and just kind of throw that stuff out there. Of course, we know the bank down and the roll-on and the rain down and all the things, right but that surfactant was really a lifesaver.
00:35:08
Speaker
I think another important point here is that this is going to take a lot more water. Yes. Or a lot more agent in general. Yes. Which points to why there needs to be a manpower increase for this kind of stuff or a gallonage increase.
00:35:24
Speaker
Yeah. And with more gallonages comes more trucks potentially. More trucks need more manpower. Not to mention the fact that you maybe need an extra person or two watching or monitoring the blanket. I think you're going to talk about that a little bit.
00:35:38
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And that's like one thing, too, and I know we're going to get into it a little bit later, but like having that information, because also when you're talking, because I've, you know, briefed a few.
00:35:51
Speaker
hire people because I've been the, the recognizes the foam guy somehow are fell into this, uh, kind of role. Right.
00:36:02
Speaker
But, um, but being able to, cause that's been our biggest pushback for the manpower, right? We're like, Oh, this stuff isn't as good. We need more people, but being able to kind of explain that to those people that aren't firefighters, you know, those higher up officers of being like,
00:36:20
Speaker
Yes, this is not as good, but this is why we need the bodies because now we have these positions and we need more agent that didn't exist before because our old stuff was better.
00:36:37
Speaker
Because you just go into somebody and be like, this stuff sucks, I need more people, isn't going to get what want. get you what you want No, there needs to be much more information there. And yeah, you just end up being the sheep that cried wolf.
00:36:52
Speaker
Right. It's like, well, let me explain why. For those of you who are willing to listen, let me explain why. Right. And it's that's a tough sell. yeah it's It's a sell that takes time.
00:37:03
Speaker
And maybe it's something that requires disaster, unfortunately. Right. It requires bad things happening so that we can, hey, why did that bad thing happen? Like, what do you need? we need more of this. This is why we've saying, oh, okay, so this is why I got you.
00:37:16
Speaker
yeah But some things are born out of tragedy. Tragedy, unfortunately, that's kind of how humans work. I'm not saying that's what's happening now. We have lobbied in the Department of the Air Force for more manpower, and that's making its way through the wickets, and that takes a long time.
00:37:36
Speaker
There's a lot of procedural things there. But our leaders on high are advocating. I know that. personally so right i think so the main thing too also with f3 and like we obviously have highlighted this a few times and i'll quit um beating a dead horse but main thing right we we you have to be intentional with what you're doing with your application rather than a triple f you could just kind of spray and pray that's the main main message out of that is knowing the situation's
00:38:13
Speaker
And knowing what to do about them and being intentional with that application. Let's talk about the dangers then and why you have to be intentional. Okay. Before we talk about employment. So scientifically different, no surfactant.
00:38:28
Speaker
What does that do to the foam when I spray it onto the ground, spray it onto fuel? Okay. So the biggest part, right, or one of the, most concerning, and I talked about the seams, right, is the resealing properties.
00:38:43
Speaker
um Without the film, they're not too, so if you're spraying out of two separate discharges, you're spraying two separate applications, those two applications are not going to become homogenous. They're not going to become one big blanket.
00:38:58
Speaker
They're going to be two separate blankets, and you're going to have that seam between the two. um So with that, um you're going to have also f three is not oleophobic. I think that's how you say it. it mean And so it'll it doesn't repel oil.
00:39:18
Speaker
And so the hydrocarbons from the fuel will mix in with the fuel, and you're going to most likely always find that along your leading edge of your blanket.
00:39:29
Speaker
Mix in with the foam. Fuel mixes in with foam. Correct. And so with that and being able to see in real time, you're going to have, along the seams, you're probably going to have some discoloration of where it picked up the fuel.
00:39:45
Speaker
And it's going to be like this grayish, brown, you know, maybe even black. um It's going to turn the white foam, it's going to discolor it. And so now, if you see that, you know that there's going to be fuel right there, which has the potential to burn.
00:40:02
Speaker
um But that's also not only with the seams or the blankets not, you know, not budding together and having that weak spot, um that fuel is also another potential to burn. So you're you're going to have the vapors that are fought trying to find that weak spot, but also the fuel along the edge.
00:40:22
Speaker
It's your greatest probably potential to have You know, you'll have basically these little small linear fires across the seams between your blankets. And so then you got to, you know, lob over on top of that and be a nice gentle application um to rain down over that to extinguish it.
00:40:44
Speaker
So that's the structure or the resealing danger of F3. What about a little earlier you referenced something called tunneling. What's that?
00:40:55
Speaker
So back to the the film, right, and the film being able to suppress the vapors better. um Without the film, the the vapor pressures of the fuel can build up under the blanket.
00:41:10
Speaker
um And so they the the flammable vapors or the superheated vapors, they want to find their way out. They want to find their way out from under the blanket. And so you can have these pressure buildups, and it'll almost look like bubbling water.
00:41:25
Speaker
under the foam blanket. And then once it gets to, it'll, you know, kind of move around or tunnel around trying to find a weak spot. And it can, even if you let it sit long enough, heat that foam up enough to where it starts to both burst those bubbles.
00:41:44
Speaker
And then it'll kind of make its own weak spot. And so that's kind of where you get that. Like I was here, i was fighting the fire here, and now I have a fire... over to my right because maybe there was a pressure buildup. It moved over there. it was able to make the blanket weak enough, and now it can come through. The vapors can come through and reignite.
00:42:05
Speaker
It's probably the most dangerous thing that this foam can do is the vapors have the ability to travel underneath the blanket and pop up somewhere you don't know where it's going to be. Well, you could see it if you see it, right? But it has the potential...
00:42:22
Speaker
if you're engaged, right, and you're not necessarily focusing um on the blankn the but overall blanket, it has the potential to flank you at, you know, somewhere else.
00:42:34
Speaker
So regardless if, you know, you notice a seam or you're noticing tunneling, it sounds like the solution is the same in that morpho. We need to Yes, correct. And so, like, without the the film, you need a thicker blanket to be able to press suppress those vapors down. But like you just said, most of the... so like most of the hostile events You can't spray the blanket directly because then you're just blowing your blanket all over the place and it's not going to come back together. So you have to have that gentle lob over the top to build the blanket up without disrupting the main blanket you've already laid down.
00:43:18
Speaker
That makes sense. And what kind of stream do you think is most effective to...
Foam Application Techniques and Environmental Challenges
00:43:24
Speaker
I'm really glad you brought that up because I... completely forgot. And that is like one of the main, that's probably one of the most important parts, right?
00:43:32
Speaker
So we'll go into the actual like TTPs, but if you're not doing a roll on or bank down, I guess you should say, you should be at what's known as a 20 degree fog pattern or a hand width fog pattern.
00:43:46
Speaker
um And it's kind of something that we did a poor job of explaining. Like when do you say hand width fog pattern, what does that even mean? Right? So essentially you're going to you're going to have your nozzle and you're going to put your hand next to it. And you're going to open the bale until the stream gets wide enough that it touches the tip of your fingers.
00:44:04
Speaker
And so you'll have like a like a nice penetrating fog pattern. So it's not too wide and it's not straight, but it's like right, you know, I guess that's what they would call it, power cone or whatever. But if you open twist the bale until it touches your fingers, that's about that 20 degree pattern. And that's what they found.
00:44:25
Speaker
you know, kind of aspirates the foam the best without maximizing or losing that reach. yes I imagine some technique involved when it comes to the bail too, right? Depending on how far you are from the tunneling you're, you're seeing occur from the seam where they all the way open, obviously you're going to send your string. Yeah. Like, they like if you're in the blanket and it's right next to you and not being too strong,
00:44:55
Speaker
To like, you're just blasting. Because also, like, they teach the rain down and like, there's there's nothing wrong with it. And if you need the reach of that, um I guess you could also use a straight stream for rain down for maximum reach. But that's because you have the stream completely up and you're letting it fall back down. But...
00:45:14
Speaker
why
00:45:18
Speaker
you Yeah, I guess I've just never thought about it. If you're close, you don't want to blast anything over, so maybe you could get away with half-bailing it. But its main takeaway is it needs to be gentle and over the top.
00:45:32
Speaker
Oh, that's what... So, like, the rain down, if you have it straight up, because I guess you you could, if it was close to you, just go straight up in the air and let it fall down. Yeah. That was one of the things that like they show you in Dallas as well.
00:45:47
Speaker
is like The rain down, because the way that the F3, it just doesn't get thrown as good as AFFF. I feel like the reach with F3, from what I've seen, is not not as good.
00:45:59
Speaker
um But shooting the foam, strip or doing an actual rain down and shooting it up in the air... the wind can kind of just do whatever it wants to do with it. And so when I've seen people kind of bring bring the angle down a little bit and kind of switch to that, you know, 20 degree fog pattern, you get the more gentle rain down or rollover on the top of the blanket rather than you kind of have, a you see, it seems like you have a little more control or you get a little bit better knockdown of what you're trying to achieve.
00:46:34
Speaker
um And the video that Matt's going to put up You'll see it. though They start high and then the stream's kind of just doing whatever and like the rain down is kind of going all over the blanket, the total blanket, because it's like, you know, raining down. It's like mystifying in the air.
00:46:52
Speaker
But then they kind of bring it down a little a little bit better to be more of a, I guess, advantageous angle and they're able to cover the scene a lot better and get the the result that they want.
00:47:05
Speaker
So that's why I call it a lob. Hmm. And so that looks totally different than the initial application, right? what what's What do you think the best plan A is for we've got a fuel fire, we got a F-35 on fire, and we're just now applying agent?
00:47:24
Speaker
So we didn't go over it in the decision making, but that's where like the OODA loop kind of comes into. um So the OODA loop for people don't know is observe, orient, decide and act. And I think it's to me, it's still kind of recognition, prime decision making. You're observing conditions, you're orientating yourself and then you're deciding and acting based upon those conditions that you observed.
00:47:45
Speaker
Why like to use the OODA loop is I kind of think it's a little more firefighter friendly of not really getting super, if you're not like a hardcore decision-making nerd. But the biggest thing with f three it as well is orientating yourself of where you are in space.
00:48:04
Speaker
And what I mean by that is like where did the crash occur? And so is it on the hard pavement or a pave or surface at, that I'm able to do a roll-on. Because so basically the progression is going to be roll-on, horizontal or base sweep, and then rain down.
00:48:23
Speaker
You're going to try to ro make the blanket as robust as ah possible at first, and you're going to get that, you know, just a couple good sweeps to build that blanket. You're going to transition to your horizontal ah with your 20 degree fog pattern.
00:48:39
Speaker
That's another reason the 20 degree fog pattern is kind of best practice as well, is the bottom half of the stream is still like kind of rolling on what you built up, and the top half of the stream is kind of coming over the top now.
00:48:53
Speaker
And so you're able to kind of, you're basically building up a blanket and then using the horizontal to kind of continue to push that same blanket across. And then with the rain down or the lob being kind of your patch jobs.
00:49:06
Speaker
um But the biggest thing with that, right, is crashes don't always happen perfect. um So in both my instances, plan A was taken away.
00:49:17
Speaker
So but i had to immediately go to, you know, I didn't really know i was kind of doing it at the time, but I had to immediately go to the horizontal, right, because I wasn't able to do a roll-on.
00:49:29
Speaker
um Same thing with the 16 crash or fire that those guys had. it was on an angle, kind of like in a ditch, so when they would try to do a roll-on or whatever, it would just slide down the hill.
00:49:40
Speaker
So situation might not allow you to do that. So now you kind of pivot to plan B back to the horizontal. It's going to work, right? um Fire is eventually going to go out, but if you're on that hard-packed surface and you have that fuel fire, try to build that blanket up as best as possible if you can.
00:50:02
Speaker
So that should be kind of the progression that you should try to achieve based upon your situation. So I want to dive into those different methods. I think everybody understands what roll on and bank down. are Horizontal is a little bit harder to understand when people explain it.
00:50:20
Speaker
And listeners, go to firedog.us, go to this episode. There's going to be a video there of horizontal application. But before we roll into that, and you've talked a lot about the details already, I also want to mention a few more dangers or two more dangers of F3, which Austin brought up, i think, earlier. and But ah it's heat resistance, right, because it doesn't have that surfactant anymore. Right.
00:50:41
Speaker
And so there's more direct flame impingement on those foam bubbles. So more heat heat impingement um and more mixing. There's going to be mixing of the foam and the fuel. And then weather changes.
00:50:55
Speaker
is a bigger consideration right 100 and so and that's funny i talked about uh didn't talk about the two things that i got to see the for the most part in real life um but the heat resistance right so the but what like matt said without the without the film the bubbles are going to experience more direct flame impingement or, you know, direct heat. And that causes those bubbles to burst.
00:51:28
Speaker
And then kind of we talked about it earlier, it's the foam will flatten out and you'll have these like basically low spots if that if you're experiencing that, um where it kind of will turn into the naval study return refers to it as milky foam.
00:51:45
Speaker
And that's kind of what it it looks. It basically looks like Dawn dish soap. Um, or if you're spraying something, well, I'll go over in a second, but anyway, um, it looks like Dawn dish soap and that's, you know, for your fuel fires. But what we kind of also don't talk about is the fact that the pavement itself could be superheated. And this is the main thing that we kind of experienced on our incidents, but aircraft composite fires burn extremely hot, right?
00:52:16
Speaker
Like when i'm looking when I was looking through the tick at both the both the incidents, it was 1,100 plus degrees. And so that foam, when you're spraying it directly or you're doing a horizontal onto the fuselage, it's going to get beat up for a while.
00:52:33
Speaker
And so that was the main thing that we were seeing is when we were fighting you know the aircraft fires that at that temperature, it takes, it's your, the foam's going to get beat up for a while until you're able to cool that, that thing that you're, you know, the surface that you're trying to put out.
00:52:53
Speaker
Um, and then that's where it's going to burst your, burst your bubbles. And that's where you're going get that like waxy foam, uh, milky looking foam.
00:53:03
Speaker
And it's not going to be, you know, as it's not going to be aerated at all. Cause your bubbles bursted, which is another great, reason or another good explanation as to why we need more agent because you're going to expend more and trying to cool down before the foam is actually effective so to the one commander that's listening to this episode hopefully that helps you understand why right we need more water more manpower and things of that sort let's talk about the equipment a little bit yeah i'm interested in how modulation
00:53:35
Speaker
works with this and how do you employ like what's you talked about a little bit what's plan a b and c where is modulation within that mix and what can you do how do you employ your
Equipment Preferences and Foam Efficiency Strategies
00:53:46
Speaker
turrets um because we talked so but a lot about in the videos that people are going to see are going to be spraying a hose line so first talk to me about equipment and specifically ah the nozzle that you mentioned in your presentation.
00:53:59
Speaker
Okay. So, you know, and I'm not like sponsored by Elkhart Brass or anything, or neither is Dallas-Fort Worth. Not yet. i think I think a lot of people have tried actually to kind of plug them, because they have ah so many people come through, and, you know, they've they've had vendors and stuff, whatever.
00:54:22
Speaker
um It's not so much the brand. You can use whatever brand that you want, but they just found that 95 GPMs at 100 PSI seem to work best with reach and aeration and all that with f three just out of the nozzle.
00:54:41
Speaker
And so they, and I kind of agree with this, they basically suggest three things. They suggest a 95 GPM fog nozzle at 100 PSI, and then they suggest carrying a foam tube,
00:54:53
Speaker
which is basically an attachment that you can attach to the nozzle that helps kind of aerate and expand that foam, but you're going to lose reach with it. That's another, you know, main thing with that, right?
00:55:07
Speaker
You're going to get a better blanket, but you're losing reach, so you kind of it's situational. And then they have the hybrid nozzle, which is like the TFT Hydro Cup or something, which is basically those two things molded into one.
00:55:24
Speaker
Um, so they, you know, they say, yeah, the hybrid nozzle works really good. And I think the Navy study also talks about using the hydro, uh, hybrid nozzle as well.
00:55:35
Speaker
Um, but that's one of those things where it's, you have to be correctly trained on it. You've got some new guy that just came from tech school and he, you know, he makes the wrong turn or wrong click or whatever. And now it's not on the mode that you want.
00:55:51
Speaker
And so it's, going to say it's gimmicky, but ah like the simplistic side of things of like the foam tubes that are on or off.
00:56:03
Speaker
It's one clip. So that's what also went with. That's what we did because it's either on or off. You either, you know, need it or you either need it or you don't need it.
00:56:14
Speaker
And the foam tube itself, I see that as more of an aftermath mop up, clean up kind of thing or say I'm
00:56:25
Speaker
you know having trouble getting a knockdown and I need that more robust, to me, plan A is always going to have the most maximum amount of reach possible.
00:56:36
Speaker
And then maybe after I get get ah get it knocked down to a comfortable level, I'll switch to the foam tube to make sure I don't have any blanket breakdown after the fact.
00:56:50
Speaker
That was your brass tacks, hard facts. Yeah, i'm there you go. Hey, man, great series, though. Let me ask you, yeah I was at Senior Fire Officer Summit back in August, and there was an F3 presentation where the presenter mentioned that F3 was not effective with ultra-high pressure.
00:57:10
Speaker
ah And that seemed to so surprise some people. You could kind of hear the rustling in the crowd. um Do you know much on that? Uh, they, they bring it up and they, they talk about it in Dallas.
00:57:22
Speaker
Um, I do actually know about it and I'm not going to say how I know about it, but I have sprayed f three out of the ultra high pressure line. Um, and the blanket that it produces. just said how you know about it.
00:57:36
Speaker
Well, okay. That's fine. not going to say the situation that I know about it. Um, but the blanket that it produces uh, Pretty pathetic, honestly. And I've seen that in real time. And I don't know. I think it's due it's due to the the bubble or the water itself. And it just turns into, like, mist, basically.
00:57:58
Speaker
Like, the little fans fans with the squirters. that's what it That's what it looks like. And I'm talking about banking down. doesn't Doesn't matter. It just kind of all turns into that, like, liquid, soupy, milky foam.
00:58:13
Speaker
Instead of being... built up or aspirated a little bit, um, as well as reach, um, f three for whatever reason, I don't necessarily have the scientific answer, but from seeing it in real life, the reach with that as well is not as good in the reach out of just a normal hand line can also get beat up.
00:58:37
Speaker
Um, especially in like wind and the cold, we saw that on the crash. Um, it was like zero degrees, I think, with like a windshield of like negative 10 or something. Don't quote me on that. I i do know it was zero degrees. i don't remember what the windshield was, but it was, you know, kind of almost, it was so cold, the foam was like crystallizing and it was causing us to not have as much reach out of our hand lines.
00:59:02
Speaker
Let's get into application methods. Talk to me about horizontal first, because this is the one that it I think that you need to do or see a video of to understand. Okay, so horizontal... ah yeah, like Matt said, I mean, most people know, hopefully know, because it's not... none of the None of these have changed from AFFF. It's just more or less, when am I going to employ them, right? Of, like, knowing the, the you know, what, how, and why of when to use these things situationally or what I'm trying to accomplish, right?
00:59:37
Speaker
And so horizontal is... you You know, we we did our roll-on, and now we want to go horizontal or whatever. Say roll-on's not, ah we're not able to do a roll-on.
00:59:49
Speaker
We're kind of bringing it like chest height. We're changing to that 20-degree fog pattern, and essentially we're just sweeping the base of the fire.
01:00:01
Speaker
And we're trying to get that bottom half to kind of do do a roll-on or continue pushing our blanket and the top half to roll over the top. How is it different than roll-on then?
01:00:12
Speaker
Or are they the same thing?
01:00:15
Speaker
It's basically you're doing, and they're not the same thing. Because a roll-on, you would want to engage the fire probably, i would say, fifteen ish feet back.
01:00:26
Speaker
Because you don't want to be too steep with a roll-on. You don't want to be too steep at an angle because now you're starting to plunge in your blow and blowing fuel everywhere. You want to be more out in front of you So it's able to hit that and project forward, if that makes sense.
01:00:46
Speaker
So is roll on your closer horizontal, your further away? I would say the opposite. Roll on, you're further away, and you're engaging, you're initiating your attack with that, and you're building that blanket up with a few sweeps.
01:01:03
Speaker
Now you can kind of bring that stream up to... continue pushing what you had before. So like you can stay in the same position where you started until you need until you've lost reach.
01:01:19
Speaker
So where i engage the fire, right, I start my roll on. I've got all I can push out as far as I can push out in front of me. Now I bring that stream chest height, I'm going to have more reach or more distance, right?
01:01:35
Speaker
And so from that, I still want to try to push what I already built up and continue pushing that with my newfound reach. And that's what the bottom half of the stream is doing.
01:01:47
Speaker
You're just continuing to push the blanket that you built up. And then once I'm out of reach, so i'm not like I'm not able to go any further, And hopefully at that point, I'm going to have some, i am going to have some knockdown of the fire.
01:02:03
Speaker
I'll be safe to move up in a linear fashion, right? Try to keep it as like. in the same application as much as you can, but you're kind of, you bought that space, you know, you've made that safe space, or that space safe, now I can advance and, you know, just basically continue to do do what I need to do until I get full extinguishment. You make a great point that if you move left or right, you're starting, you're starting over again, right, because what, the work that you've done is theoretically right in front of you, right?
01:02:37
Speaker
You can move left right. Everything needs to be in a line. And you're basically trying to continue to push that line as further as far up as you possibly can.
01:02:49
Speaker
you Where you would start to see two separate applications is if you started, say you have a quadrant, right? You start in this bottom quadrant and then you come over here and you have to spray again or you are spraying from the side.
01:03:04
Speaker
then you would probably start to see that's where those two blankets are going to be, kind of like that. um So with f three that's another thing. And you may have to do that. If you've got a big, big plane where you have quadrants, you may have four separate applications.
01:03:21
Speaker
But the thing, and we can talk about that with like modulation, right? Driving around in a circle spraying ah aircraft, And not being intentional where where I'm trying to have my blanket is no longer a thing.
01:03:35
Speaker
it's Because you're now you're going to have 37 different applications that I don't really know where, you know. kind of So you have to be intentional of where you're you have to be intentional where you're starting your attack, right?
01:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. I'm trying to understand it. and I'm trying to make sure to ask the right questions so that listeners can understand it too. Because again, it's different than AFFF. And when I went through and learned how to be an ARF driver operator when in 2008 or whenever it was, you know, modulation is the first thing. Like that's, that is in my mental Rolodex. Right.
01:04:11
Speaker
How do I break free of that? So,
01:04:15
Speaker
So i like to use scenarios, right? Hypothetical scenarios. A downed aircraft and trapped people, let's say it's upright and we're taught to protect the path of egress.
01:04:29
Speaker
So if I'm a crash truck, how do I approach that? What type of aircraft?
01:04:37
Speaker
F-35. Well, let's call it... It doesn't... I don't know. It doesn't matter. I don't think so. though So I, in my mind, right, fighters, ah you could you can almost always do... Modulation is less important.
01:04:52
Speaker
Correct. If it's a smaller frame is what you're getting at. My... What's going to deter... Like, and I kind of have this, right? That's like one of those decision-making points of like type of aircraft, volume of fire, right?
01:05:04
Speaker
Like, Yes, is there a lot of fire with ah you know a big fireball with ah with a fighter? Absolutely, it's jet fuel. You're you know you're going to have a big explosion. um But like a like a heavy, right like that fuel volume is way, way more. right so like That's kind of where I see the turrets being used.
01:05:30
Speaker
I'm not saying like if they pull up on a fighter and you spray your turret and get a knockdown on it, like that's wrong. But with like the hand line, I can be way more intentional with my with my application and be able to kind of do... So that's where I would go with people trap.
01:05:52
Speaker
Fighter trap, i'm probably pulling a line and I'm cutting that that path. straight stream pushing the foam wherever i need to or pushing the fuel wherever I need to go, and then I'm kind of holding the line there, and then hopefully somebody behind me is able to get them out. you want Dallas-Fort Worth or the FAA, their plan for a heavy if or ah airliner, if people are trapped, is basically shelter to try and shelter in place for them.
01:06:19
Speaker
They're trying to get the outside as under control as possible, Because now got to think, right? You've got a large pool pool of fuel for the heavy.
01:06:31
Speaker
That person jumps into that and and ah disrupts the foam blanket. there There's potential that they're going to have re-ignition right there when you've got a bunch of holes getting poked in your in your fuel blanket.
01:06:46
Speaker
so that's like And that's the thing with F3, right? That's my mindset because I want to go in there and get those people out.
Tactics and Terminology in Firefighting with F3 Foam
01:06:53
Speaker
But it's also one of those things of like I can't – I got to get the outside under control before I can go in and get the inside and get them out because I haven't made the outside safe yet. Yeah, there's a lot of points. and I'm kind of playing devil's advocate, and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it too. It's new for everybody. It's new for all of us, and so I think it's important we have these conversations. I'm not trying to call you out or the FFA out.
01:07:20
Speaker
you know As you're talking about that, I'm thinking instincts don't care. Human instincts don't care. You're going to tell people to shelter in place when it's 2,000 degrees outside of the fuselage? Right. is that but And there's also something to be said about the mechanical forces of water and agent and moving fuel out of the way too, right? Right. So that could be a consideration, a tactical consideration when we're talking about creating a rescue path. Maybe we're not necessarily...
01:07:49
Speaker
cooling, or maybe we're cooling just a little bit, maybe we're not extinguishing, but maybe we are we we can have an ability to push things out of the way. But to your point, too, I mean, it's it takes a lot more water. We've already discussed this, and so there's ah there's an element of conservation that you have to think about, too.
01:08:06
Speaker
Maybe I don't want to use my turret as much. And another point I wanted to bring up was The turrets exist for a reason. They're a first strike capability. the The reason they exist is so that you can put agent at the soonest opportunity. I don't have to worry about opening the damn door, deploying hose, all right, charge it up, right? The whole intent behind a turret is reach, but timeliness too.
01:08:29
Speaker
Right. So I guess I'm hesitant to so tell anybody, and i don't think I'm not suggesting that you have told anybody, but I'm i'm hesitant to say to anybody, go go straight to a hand line because you can be more intentional about how you're applying and conservative.
01:08:45
Speaker
and i I think it's similar to a deck gun. It's the same thing of like you pull up to a house and the whole front side of the house porch is on fire and I'm deleting, you know, it taking however long the guys stretch a line. That's a great example. yeah i if that And they did that on the 16 fire too. If it buys you time,
01:09:04
Speaker
Buy yourself time. What are you saying? They use a deck gun? No, they use the turret. No, I got you. Yeah, they use the turret to knock it down, and then they they mopped it up with the hand line. Just understand that those two applications are now going to be separate and do you know deal with that accordingly. Because you know they knocked it down, and then the the fuel tank tank ruptured, and then they had a you know running fuel fire, basically.
01:09:29
Speaker
But based on the slope, they were having trouble because the foam and the fuel were just kept sliding down.
01:09:40
Speaker
Great conversations. Again, I'm not trying to stump the chump or anything. I'm just talking out loud. It's a different weapon system, as people refer to it as. but Right. it's It's different than A11. That's the entire point. And so the tactics are going to change, too.
01:09:54
Speaker
Right. We talked about modulation. Right.
01:09:58
Speaker
different application methods. One thing with matt modulation too, sorry. So best practice is going to be your bumper turret. Just due to its lower on the truck, um it's not as steep of an angle.
01:10:13
Speaker
So you're not going to have that, you know, you don't want to plunge into the fuel. um So with that steeper or that more gentle angle, right, you can still use it to, you know, do all the things you can do.
01:10:26
Speaker
with your hand line, right? You can use it use the roll-on, you can use the horizontal, you can use the bank down, are the or the rain down. But they just found that that lower angle on the truck doesn't cause a so as steep of an angle and there's less plunging.
01:10:42
Speaker
You're able to kind of get that that stream more out in front of you like you would do with the hand line. not that Not that your roof turret can't be used. you can If you need the reach,
01:10:54
Speaker
or you're trying to cool the fuselage, you know, directly or whatever, use your roof turret. But, you know, if you're rolling up and you you have ah your roof turret super high, you're going to spray stuff potentially where you don't want it to go.
01:11:12
Speaker
Really, I think, in in trying in my mind, trying to find the differences between the two things, the the legacy foam and now the new stuff and how to employ it, I see us really going to hand line much quicker than what we used to.
01:11:28
Speaker
I think is what it comes down to. Right. Whereas you would rely so heavily, we would rely so heavily on a roof and a bumper turret, now it's like, At the soonest opportunity, let's employ that handline.
01:11:39
Speaker
the Or multiple handlines. Right. Not saying don't use the turrets, but be intentional about how you use them, how often you use them. and then how soon you get that line out.
01:11:50
Speaker
And once you get that line out, and depending on your circumstance and the conditions that you're faced with, because that's always a variable, right, cut that roof turret, cut that bumper turret, and let's go straight to hand line. Right.
01:12:01
Speaker
I think you really, in the in the future this, you just have to be more intentional about how you're employing your tech. Because you also got to think, too, of like there's a few videos of like the roof turret going, or the bumper turret, you know, truck pulls up,
01:12:16
Speaker
Bumper turret's going, and now the hand line on the side is going. And now they're both spraying and ah on a linear plane, and the bumper turret's basically blowing... You're you're basically... You're going to be fighting against each other. Right, exactly. You're going to be blowing two blankets two separate ways. You're just wasting So with that, right, and we already brought up that it takes more agent to put this stuff out, you have to be intentional with what you... So if you go bumper turret...
01:12:46
Speaker
stick the bumper turret for as long as possible until you just either need the hand line to mop it up or you lost the reach, right? Based upon whatever situation you're dealt with.
01:12:59
Speaker
But try to make that, you kind of that's why i think to advocate to your point of the hand line, you have to basically stick your foot in the ground and whatever decision you go with, you kind of have to roll with it until you're,
01:13:14
Speaker
you know, face with having to pivot um after whatever, you know, the initial knockdown. Real quick, talk to me about the importance of onlookers monitoring backup positions.
01:13:28
Speaker
Yeah. So this is a kind of a new thing, right. Of like these positions and kind of going back to the manpower thing of like, we're, We want more people or we've justified more people, but it's kind of being able to explain why we need these positions, right? So um now with every line, you should basically have three people stacked to the line because when you if you drag your hose through a blanket...
01:13:56
Speaker
it's going to cause a seam. It's goingnna it's going to disrupt the foam blanket and it's not going to reseal behind you. um So essentially that third guy is just on the landline to hold the hose up behind you and to keep it out of the blanket as you know you the crew chief and the nozzleman advance into the blanket.
01:14:16
Speaker
um that What that third guy can do, which really every but everyone should be doing, unless you're you know maybe the nozzleman and you're directly engaging or fighting fire is that third guy and the backup or the first backup guy need to be kind of monitoring the conditions of the blanket to make sure they're not having, you know, any of that ghosting or tunneling or having any of that degradation of the blanket where they could potentially get faint flanked.
01:14:45
Speaker
um Because that was one of the things in the Navy navy study, um not knocking them, right, but like a lot of the studies advocate to go that,
01:14:55
Speaker
the horizontal is the go-to method. But that's because you're spraying the fire directly, right? And so they they have a pretty decent fuel fire they're fighting, and they're doing a horizontal, and then they advance into the blanket, and then directly to their left, they get flanked because they get some reflash because that foam blanket broke down.
01:15:19
Speaker
So it's like if you don't have a life safety... why not try to make the foam blanket as robust as possible first kind of the quality over quantity thing or, so you know, quality o versus speed.
01:15:34
Speaker
Am I putting it out faster ah faster just to come back and redo it again? you know? Um, so that got, that was one of the considerations of that too.
01:15:46
Speaker
One thing I'd love to see from yeah certainly NCOs, uh, crew chiefs, training chiefs is, i feel like there's such a need to ah lean into the language we use standardizing this kind of stuff, right? yeah um Whether it's, you know, like tunneling is a perfect example for that to be the term we use as an AFSC that the airman on the lines brain triggers to, okay, tunneling,
01:16:18
Speaker
rain down in whatever area, right? Like their brain back to the recognition prime decision-making jumps to the solution based off of this one term we're using for um whether it's horizontal application, whether it's seam, you know, to lean into.
01:16:36
Speaker
yeah there is there is some jargon that needs to be created. And that was kind of like what you were talking about, Matt, is like Chief Hughes, he was like, you need to more referring to the backup line or the secondary attack line which is not really a backup line or a secondary attack line but it's more of a blanket management group basically um and it's not necessarily writ it could be writ it's probably going to be writ right now because we don't have the manpower and we have to kind of find a fix uh you know
01:17:10
Speaker
a loophole until we get the, you know, the ability to have this extra line that we need with the three extra bodies on top of it. But they're pretty much sitting there with a tick and, uh, just basically covering those guys back in case they do get flanked and they don't see it, or they are starting to get that tunneling and ghosting, or they have a scene that they couldnt couldn't see that that backup team can start to do that,
01:17:36
Speaker
gentle application over the top to kind of cover those guys and make sure they don't get put in a bad spot. And so, like you said, we don't have a name for that right now. I don't know what to call it because, you know, I don't, I'm not the foam guy making all the decisions. You're foam guy, man. You already told us you're the foam guy.
01:17:55
Speaker
No, but I am the foam guy now, apparently. It's been a – it's been somewhat of an obsession. It's a side quest. That's what I'll call it. You know what's so funny to because I know you personally? Yeah. The fact that you're like – I don't want to call you hyper-invested, but you're the foam guy when you're like a structural guy at heart.
01:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Isn't that hilarious? I know about that. It's kind of like the irony of the situation of like – I kind of ended up here, man. No, I did. But I think it's just because my – the way that I think about structural – I applied what – I've done all of this, the same methodology, same thinking, and applied that to structural. And that's why I think I've been mildly successful with this is I just applied that to this F3. That's all I did.
01:18:47
Speaker
And so it's like with like the RPD and the OODA loop and all that, it can be applied to every single aspect of our job. You just have to have all all the you know nuts and bolts. ah You have to have true understanding of the situation and be able to distill the information down that people that don't have a frame of reference, are it's usable for them.
01:19:12
Speaker
That's a good point for instructors anywhere, for any top you know subject. Right. think Our egos tell us that we want to feel and sound smart about things, and you really have to subordinate that and if you're really trying to convey a point, not, I always like to say, break out the crayons, man. I need the crayons broken out for me.
01:19:29
Speaker
Right. That's why I was like, talk to me about horizontal and roll on dude. Like, what are we talking about? Right. What's a secondary versus a backup versus written, you know? But yeah. No, for sure. No, it's for sure. Cause like you, and it's also important to have somebody to be able to kind of pull those threads for you. Right. Cause sometimes we don't realize that like,
01:19:51
Speaker
you're operating at like 30,000 feet and they're, they're, you know, surface level and they have no clue what you're talking about. Cause I start talking heat flux and stuff to people and they're like, huh?
01:20:04
Speaker
And it's just really confusing. But now, you know, I, it's, you'd be gotta to be able to like, okay, break that apart to where it's absorbable to them. Anyway, that's instruction. But,
01:20:16
Speaker
um Back to jargon, right? So, yeah, the third the secondary hand line, or really would would be a third, I guess, third hand line, is more of like a ah blanket management group.
01:20:28
Speaker
You got your guy with a tick um kind of scanning the blanket and seeing if he can kind of see any any vapors coming up that, you know, maybe the guys can't necessarily see, looking for those hostile events or those safety concerns.
01:20:45
Speaker
and then being able to kind of gently out apply more foam if need be.
01:20:53
Speaker
We covered a lot, Austin. Yeah, that was... There's a lot in your brain. but I appreciate all the the work that you put into this, you know, just to help us understand it, man. And there's a lot more, I think, that needs to be figured out.
01:21:07
Speaker
And I think there's an opportunity to to standardize some things to the best of our ability. 100%. Our playbooks and stuff like that, too, you know. Yeah. i And this is, like like like you said, this is an ongoing... What I said right now,
01:21:21
Speaker
and two years could probably completely change, right? This is just our best information at the time. yeah um And it's a brand new thing. Like, we you know, as the next crash happens, they might find something that worked better, right?
01:21:35
Speaker
So it's an evolving process. And like, i don't as the enterprise as a whole, we're figuring this out. So I and i think that it's...
01:21:46
Speaker
you know It's okay to not know. we're just trying We're trying to do the best thing that we can do right now. You're certainly pulling your fair share. I appreciate everything. I appreciate you coming on today, sharing everything.
Conclusion and Additional Resources
01:22:00
Speaker
Again, listeners, go to firedog.us, find this episode, and I'm going to dump as much as I can find in there in videos. and The China Lake Study is what you've been referring to throughout the episode, right?
01:22:13
Speaker
ah Yeah, believe so. that's what the That's where the Naval Research Lab is. Yeah, in California. That's a great read if this kind of stuff interests you, which it should if you're responsible for our firefighting.
01:22:26
Speaker
they Those might be separate. There's a Naval but a Research Laboratory study directly on F3. Yeah, this it was done at China Lake. Okay, okay, okay. So that's what when I say China Lake, that's what I mean too. Gotcha. Gotcha.
01:22:41
Speaker
You got anything else before we wrap it up? Chris, you got anything else?
01:22:46
Speaker
I do. Okay, one last thing. Reapplication is almost certain. So don't feel bad if you don't knock it or get a complete knockdown off through off the rip. Like, you're going to have to reapply this stuff in some form or fashion.
01:23:01
Speaker
Whether that's just covering the seams, covering the flat spots, whatever it may be, or, you know, maybe, you know, you get some degradation and it and it pokes through again. It's gonna happen.
01:23:13
Speaker
So that's kind of one of the other reasons of needing more agent It's going to take a little bit. So if you have to do that, don't feel like you did something wrong or you weren't doing it right. It's just the way that this stuff is.
01:23:27
Speaker
yeah Don't compromise quality for speed because you're going to end up having to redo something. Right. Unless we're trying to maybe use water as a mechanical force to make room for people to walk away.
01:23:41
Speaker
But other than that... Right. That's the last thing you got. Cool. We appreciate your time, man. No problem, man. Have a good one. It's good to have you back on. Yeah, later.
01:23:52
Speaker
Bye. Peace. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fire Dog Podcast. You can find more episodes like this on our website, firedog.us, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We're also on YouTube, and we're on social media. Check us out on Facebook.
01:24:06
Speaker
Instagram, and LinkedIn at the Fire Dog Podcast. That is the Fire DAWG Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe, like, follow, so you can stay plugged into every new episode. We'd appreciate it if you'd share this podcast with your friends and your coworkers, whether on social media or within your firehouse.
01:24:23
Speaker
This is Matt Wilson with co-host Chris Boikley and guest Austin Perry. Until next time, stay safe.