There has been a few questions asking what the ARFFS response would be to this incident, it is standard sop to stay on the paved surfaces if at all possible, the appliances all have off road capability but at between 32 to 40+ tons the drivers have to be confident that if they go off paved surfaces they will reach the aircraft and be able to produce foam if required at approximately 6000 litres a minute, or if they fail to get to the aircraft, deploy sidelines at 450 litres a minute! Depending on what part of the world this happens, the appliances could be operated by one firefighter, in the uk this doesn't happen at the moment! There has been many comments on evacuate or not, in the event of an aircraft accident/incident it is our aim to create survivable conditions for pax to evacuate, remember we can only produce water/foam for around 2 minutes to 2 minutes 30 at full output from the monitors (turrets). We do communicate with the flight deck and advise the a/c commander of the situation but it is his/her decision to evacuate.
Last edited by Nubian Major; 30th Jun 2016 at 09:11.
Reason: Change output figure