Originally Posted by
Jwscud
I grew up with AFFF, the blood stuff came in late in my firefighting experience. Didn’t realise it was the original!
I agree with Intruder that protein ("blood stuff") fire fighting foams pre-dated the more modern AFFF foams; however, since protein foams are biodegradable and AFFF foams are not, there may be a recent push to return to the protein foams. During my days in the USAF, protein foams were in use, and these reportedly were based on cattle blood. The stuff smelled bloody awful (pun intended) and seemed to hang about on the ramp for days. The U.S. Navy developed AFFF foams in the late 1960s, and this, to my knowledge, has been the preferred fire fighting foam since. As a fire protection engineer, I was involved in aircraft hangar fire protection design for a number of years (1970 - 2010), and the foams in use then were AFFF. I've been out of the game for some 10 years now, and there may be a push to go back to protein foams due to environmental concerns.
By the way, there are two basic types of AFFF foams: low expansion as depicted in the photographs of foam covering the hangar floor, and high expansion as depicted in the photo of the F-16 getting a bubble bath.
Cheers,
Grog