Can you clarify what you mean by extinguisher material of some sort? Vinyl chloride fires of a large size such as the Ohio one, firefighters are in a world of shit. Damage control is what’s occurring, let the tanks burn, try and keep the other tanks cool so they don’t explode, try and contain the leaked chemical as best you can. It’s a Herculean task that’s very easy to look back on with 20/20 vision from a firefighting standpoint.
There isn’t. That is only effective on a small fire, not one in which hundreds of thousands of gallons of industrial strength undiluted chemicals are burning.
I’m well aware of that, but foam is not indicated in this particular kind of vinyl chloride fire, ie one where there is far too much VC burning at once. Getting foam into that fire will do nothing, get away from the tanks that are heating up and about to explode, and try and get enough water on them to stop from exploding. These industrial chemical fires have specific instructions for this.
Firefighter foams, such as AFFF (Look it up - useful for suppressing vapors) are used in conjunction with water - they are literally drawn into the firestream and the water is how they are applied. I'm not sure if any of those type of things were used or not, but, unless you know what you are dealing with before you start firefighting operations, the things that are usually done first are to "put the wet stuff on the red stuff" and worry about the runoff after the fact. That goes double for volunteer departments which are more than likely a large part of the response during the early stages because they know their resources will be exhausted if they don't react quick enough.
Can you clarify what you mean by extinguisher material of some sort? Vinyl chloride fires of a large size such as the Ohio one, firefighters are in a world of shit. Damage control is what’s occurring, let the tanks burn, try and keep the other tanks cool so they don’t explode, try and contain the leaked chemical as best you can. It’s a Herculean task that’s very easy to look back on with 20/20 vision from a firefighting standpoint.
There isn’t. That is only effective on a small fire, not one in which hundreds of thousands of gallons of industrial strength undiluted chemicals are burning.
Well, you're actually wrong on that point - large amounts of chemicals are exactly why there are various foams used by firefighters.
Good article on foams and why they are used
https://www.piercemfg.com/pierce/blog/fire-fighting-foam-systems
I’m well aware of that, but foam is not indicated in this particular kind of vinyl chloride fire, ie one where there is far too much VC burning at once. Getting foam into that fire will do nothing, get away from the tanks that are heating up and about to explode, and try and get enough water on them to stop from exploding. These industrial chemical fires have specific instructions for this.
Firefighter foams, such as AFFF (Look it up - useful for suppressing vapors) are used in conjunction with water - they are literally drawn into the firestream and the water is how they are applied. I'm not sure if any of those type of things were used or not, but, unless you know what you are dealing with before you start firefighting operations, the things that are usually done first are to "put the wet stuff on the red stuff" and worry about the runoff after the fact. That goes double for volunteer departments which are more than likely a large part of the response during the early stages because they know their resources will be exhausted if they don't react quick enough.