This commentary is by Dick St. George, chief of Charlotte Fire/Rescue.
I would like to clear up some misconceptions with regards to a fire our department responded to last winter at the garage located on Church Hill Road. Questionable statements have been published in multiple places that need to be set straight.
Type and use of foam at fire scenes: Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue uses — and has used for the last 20 years — PHOS-CHEK 881 class A foam, which is a forestry service-approved Class A foam. It is a surfactant (a compound that lowers the surface tension or interfacial tension between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or between a liquid and a solid). It is equivalent to Dawn Dish soap. It contains no added PFAS.
PHOS-CHEK WD-881 Class A foam is highly biodegradable. More than 85% reverts to carbon dioxide within 28 days of exposure to ambient conditions in the environment. Safety data sheets are available at the website but are for pure concentrate exposure.
Prior to that, we used a product called Flameout with the same properties.
Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue applies this product at a rate of 0.03 percent per gallon of finished foam in our compressed air systems, which allows us a quicker knockdown with less time and water usage.
Applying this with our compressed air foam systems is five to 10 times more effective than just plain water, along with other benefits.
I’ve reached out to other area departments — most are our mutual aid partners — on their foam. The Shelburne, Ferrisburgh, Hinesburg and Monkton fire departments all use one of the foams mentioned above, and have for years for interoperability on the scene of a call. We can share foam at an incident.
As for the Air National Guard apologizing for contaminating the site with PFAS and paying for the cleanup, the only thing it brought to the scene was 4,000 gallons of clean city water — the same as the first load of water from the departments of Hinesburg, Ferrisburgh, Shelburne, Vergennes and New Haven. When that water supply was depleted, water was pulled from two dry hydrants in ponds in Charlotte.
It is important to note that these departments did not refill when leaving the scene, due to the water being full of particles that is rough on the pumps of fire trucks.
If someone had brought a Class B foam with PFAS in it, we would not have used it. Mixing it with the Class A foam used in our area would have turned into a gel, which would have resulted in a repair billing in the range of $50,000 and placing the truck out of service for months for the repair.
We are aware and very mindful of the issues of PFAS and to my knowledge have not used any in over 30 years. I cannot attest to what was used prior to that.
As for using a year’s worth of foam to suppress the fire, Charlotte Volunteer Fire and Rescue arrived on scene in less than four minutes with six firefighters. Using this foam allowed us to:
- Save a truck next to the burning fuel tanks.
- Prevent the spread to the house across the road, which was a real possibility.
- Prevent the rupture of two fuel tanks with 2,500 gallons of fuel, which would have contaminated the waterway downstream into Lake Champlain.
Furthermore, the main power line next to the building was on the verge of melting and did not have to be turned off. This line supplies many customers in Charlotte and other communities from the VELCO substation in subfreezing conditions.