Pierce Contender and CAFS

[bookworm]

Does anyone know if a Contender can be ordered with Pierce's CAFS setup. I have not seen it as an option in their ads.

[cookred03]

Yes you can spec one with a CAF's system.

[cfire3]

If you are interested in the CAFS you might take a look at the Darley AutoCAFS2 It is without a doubt the best in the industry. And it meets the requirements for the 1.5 ISO rate reductions in TEXAS.

My fire department gets credit for reducing pollution when they use their CAFS and the insurance companies pay for all the foam we use.

We are using ChemGuard A plus on all types of fires with very good results. paying $9.00 a gallon for it and F.I.R.E. inc. is billing the insurance companies $50.00 a gallon plus $500.00hr. for the foam truck. We use the CAFS for TNRCC accepted bioremediation at wrecks too. It's much easier than the oil sorb which can cause liability problems if not handled as a Hazmat.

cfire3@msn.com

[bookworm]

Will Pierce put a Darley AUTOCAFS II in any of their pumpers? I know they are putting Darley pumps on their Hawks. I know Pierce and Seagrave have not used Darley very much if at all. Darley makes great pumps. Waterous and Hale tend to have a strangle hold on the major builders.

[TCFD12]

Bookworm,

Be sure to do your research about the CAFS systems available. The guy above is a dealer for Darley AutoCAFS, so his opinion may be a bit skewed.

One thing to look at is the added maintenance that is required vs. the benefit that you will recieve. I know that for my dept., we we originally going to get CAFS, but decided against it due to the added maintenance vs the amount of times that it would get used. We ended up going with just a straight injection foam system. I realize that its not the same and I'm not trying to compare the two systems. We made a decision based on our needs. You should make sure that you compare the different systems out there and decide what is right for your department.

Just my opinion.

[cfire3]

Fred, Thanks for your reply to my forum comment.
We are working on our city council to get an AutoCAFS as our next truck. We have been using custom built CAFS for about 12 years now and we are definitely looking forward to the new apparatus. I have researched the manufactures for several years now and I am satisfied that Darley has the best, in fact, it's no secret, I am trying to establish a dealership relation with them. Darley uses the Gardner Denver compressor and if you know anything about compressors you know they are head and shoulders above the Bauer units.

Darley also seems to be the only truck company that is fully dedicated to the CAFS .
As you have said, the others seem reluctant. This is the reason I chose Darley, they are clearly the leaders in this new technology and are not reluctant to invest in it.

When I read reports like the one the LA County published that claims CAFS is 4 times better than water pumpers it makes me wonder why some people are so slow to see the future. I guess they don't mind working 4 times harder and longer or using 4 times more water. They may not believe that water runoff carries toxic byproducts into the storm drains and 4 times as much smoke pollutes the air we breath. They may not know that plain old wood smoke contains more than 50 listed toxic elements in it and several of those cause cancer. Just imagine what's in smoke from a house or factory. They might be interested in a bigger water pump and LDH to do more with more, but I think we need to consider doing more with less.

And if that isn't enough reason to consider a good CAFS then they might consider that the President says we are at war here in our Homeland and I for one prefer to use a CAFS and be able to do more than just cool a fire and have water runoff spread chem/bio products into the neighborhoods and into the storm drains.

But then I might be a bit skewed as the other guy says. lol

Thanks for you interest and I hope some of this is useful information to you,
Mark Cummins

[Jim917]

And it meets the requirements for the 1.5 ISO rate reductions in TEXAS. We are using ChemGuard A plus on all types of fires with very good results. paying $9.00 a gallon for it and F.I.R.E. inc. is billing the insurance companies $50.00 a gallon plus $500.00hr. for the foam truck. We use the CAFS for TNRCC accepted bioremediation at wrecks too.

For those of us not in TX, could you expand on what you mean?

What is the ISO rate reduction? I'm familiar with ISO rating from 1- 10 but not with any rate reduction program.

Are you saying you can buy ChemGuard outright for $9. a gallon? Great price.

Who is FIRE Inc? Are they billing insurance companies under the homeowners policy? I was under the impression there was a $500. ceiling on these "fire dept service charges" and it applies to structures only.

What is TNRCC accepted bioremediation?

Thanks.

[5pts384]

Most rural VFD dept. buy (very used) trucks and water is almost free. A CAFS sounds good and if we win the FEMA lottery we hope to purchase a CAFS. Wish us luck!

[cfire3]

Yes, the lottery would be nice. And we used to work 4 times as hard fighting fires with water too, (before we started useing the CAFS.)
Sorry, just couldn't help saying that.

Actually the barriers are beginning to come down for the acceptance of CAFS. I think the LA County test and Alan Brunacinni's (sorry for the spelling) comments have helped tremendously.

To answer the previouse questions, The Texas Senate passed and implemented SB1610 in 2001 that gives a rate reduction equal to having a hydrant within one thousand feet of a protected property.
Our State Insurance Agency somehow applies that as a 1.5 ISO rate reduction. I'm not sure of the red tape involved but I'm sure there is probably quit a bit,

I use the Chemguard A Plus in my company CAFS because it seems to work better for a wider range of fire types. We use it to extinguish burning liquid B fires as well as class A fires and when customers asked where we get it I figured I should work on an agreement with ChemGuard to sell it. I wanted the best stuff available so it will make my CAFS look as good as possible. I can now sell it for $9 a gallon with free freight anywhere in the cont. states for pallet quantities (180 gallons).

As for the fire departments that want to use a billing service, there are two billing companies that I know of that will do all the billing and collections. They charge between 15% and 25% for the service. All you have to do is send the incident report and they do the rest. My local fire department is using F.I.R.E Inc.com and the other one is an insurance company, VFSI.

They can charge recovery expenses beyond the standard $500 home policy when the fire report claims the CAFS is used for environmental protection applications to reduce the amount of air and runoff water pollution. And also as a safety factor by reducing the workload for the firefighters.

As for bioremediation, the Texas environmental agency (TNRCC) accepts the use of CAFS, with the oil eating microbes, for wreck washdown as a preferred method to remediate the hydrocarbon sheen rule enforced by the EPA. If you use oil sorb the contaminated oil sorb is classified as a toxic substance and should not be left at the scene and should not be disposed of in the dumpster or in the wrecked vehicle.

We have found that using the foam as a washdown scrubber cleanes the roadway better and is safer for the traffic. It is much easier and we recover expenses for each opened five gallon container of foam as well as the use of the foam truck when used for environmental protection and remediation.

If or when we have a terrorist incident we plan to use the CAFS foam as a biological particulate matter fixant and a chemical vapor sealant and if we can get the new Navy QAC decon agent we will add it to our foam mixture to neutralize the chem/bio agents including the agriculture pesticides and organophosphate toxic products plus hoof & mouth desease.

And you can also blanket a house with this stuff and stop the fallout fire spotting from a forest fire.

I hope some of this is usefull information.

[5pts384]

Thanks Mark---Myron