Flow Rates for Firefighting.pdfComment on this page

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Flow Rates for Firefighting.pdf

A recent survey of 58 UK fire brigades demonstrated that 89 percent of brigades were actually flowing far less water through their attack hose-lines than they realised and in some cases were flowing as little as 16 per cent of their target (nozzle specification) flow-rates! Further still, the influence of CFBT (Compartment Fire Behaviour Training) in the UK has encouraged a dangerous precedent – that less water means safer and more effective firefighting! This philosophy only holds true for gaseous-phase fire involvement restricted in area where beyond this amount of fire, a ‘highflow’ hose-line capability is essential for fire control. Situations whereby firefighters are ‘pulsing’ the smallest of flows into high volume gaseous-phase fires achieve far from the intended objectives of well-founded CFBT programmes and such approaches place firefighters at unnecessary risk.