Trailer-Mounted "Pumper " Uses Foam To Put Out Fires

Trailer-Mounted "Pumper " Uses Foam To Put Out Fires SPECIALTY/SERVICES Specialty/Services 28-4-18 After a bark beetle epedimic killed almost all the spruce trees on his ranch, creating a lot of dead trees and a big fire danger, Lloyd Schade of Homer, Alaska, put together his own self-contained fire pumping system using an old Army Jeep "generator trailer." It's used to create 10-ft. wide foam barriers that stop fires in their tracks. The 2-wheeled trailer can be pulled behind any 4-WD tractor, truck, or pickup, allowing it to be used off the road and in fields and woods. "It's a low-cost but highly efficient system. I think it could be used anywhere in rural North America," says Schade, who operates a beef cow operation on 600 acres. "It lets us go to any fire and put it out while it's still small, instead of waiting on the road for the fire to build up and come to us." He installed a 500-gal. tank on the Jeep trailer and a gas engine-driven pump, as well as four 1 1/2-in. dia., 100-ft. long hoses equipped with foam applicator nozzles. "In my opinion, it works ten times better than using conventional fire trucks," says Schade. "We live in a remote area where tankers and fire trucks often have to be flown in. Our trailer-mounted fire pumper lets us build a fire break rapidly with foam when the fire is still small and contain it in a small acreage, eliminating the need to cut miles of firebreak. "I built my first trailer three years ago and have since built two others. Our community volunteer fire department uses all of them. I left the metal frame on the trailer for people to hold onto if they want to ride along. We use three-man teams to work the trailer - one to operate the truck or tractor, one to operate the pump, and one to handle the hose. Since we drive to the fire, most of the time one or two hoses is all we need. We use Barricade BFFF foam which breaks down in only two or three days. It lasts much longer and penetrates better than traditional foams, and it's also easy to clean up. "The pump is belt-driven by a 30 hp gas engine, which we have to throttle down in order to avoid wasting water. I run the pump at 95 to 100 psi. I gravity-fill the tank out of a spring or fill it out of a 5,000-gal. fire department tanker truck. I use a 400-gal. transfer tank mounted on another vehicle to go with the pump system," he notes. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Lloyd and Roxie Schade, 35250 Schade Dr., Homer, Alaska 99603 (ph 907 235-8949; email: rls@xyz.net).

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