Fire Fighter's Foam/Bull's Blood
 

When I was a young J/T,at Kinloss in the 1970s,I remember one enlightening "fact" which came about from a tallish tale. Those of you familiar with the Moray area will, no doubt, have heard of the Findhorn Foundation whose early claim to fame was that they could grow very large cabbages in pi** poor soil.(sand basically) Google them if you haven't.

Anyway; the upshot, from gnarled old SACs and Corporals in crew room conversation, was that,in their day, many a squadron/unit,in desert locations,had grown large veggies by use of life-ex foaming agent that the Fire Sections were issued with. Apparently, in times gone by,this agent was made from real bull's blood and had a relatively short shelf life. Which probably meant there was lots of it and it was awkward to get rid of overseas. Somebody, somewhere discovered it's properties as a fertiliser, word spread and the speciality crop was carrot. (Do well in sandy soil and grow very well with good fertiliser)
Anyone out there like to confirm or quietly quash.

As an allotmenter, bulls blood provides potash which is a very good fertilizer.
Carrots do grow well in sandy soils but what the bulls blood connection with carrots is, is a mystery as carrots do not like any form of fertilizer. Neither do parsnips.It makes them fork. Most others will benefit from it but most greens such as cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts etc, prefer a nitrogen based feed.

I was familiar with this foam for most of my fire service career. I say most because they took it off us because it was toxic.


Having said that, it was used on the allotment behind Foleshill Road Fire Station which was tended by the Firemen.


As with Oldbury Fire Station, Foleshill Fire Station was built within the total destruction zone of the chemical complexes just across the road.

When I was Station Fire officer at Seletar (1967-68) we were sometimes asked for spare drums of foam compound by blokes who were going shark fishing. Apparently they trickled it into the water behind the boat and the theory was it would attract every shark for miles around. Nobody ever presented us with a shark, though, so I have no idea how effective it was.

Actually it made very good thick foam which didn't disperse quickly, unlike the chemical foam compound which came along later.

When I was a Part-time (and very gullible) Fire Officer in'62, the old hands told me that the stuff was the drainings from abattoirs.

Apparently, "pre-mix" (the mixture before it has air injection in the Foam Monitor), is an excellent dispersant when sprayed onto agitators who are threatening to climb over the airfield fences or otherwise making nuisances of themselves.

They stink to high heaven for a week, it seems, and there is no way of washing it off. :*

D.

MAKE FOAM AT GRID REF A6
 

In my early days, we used to have a "booking list" in the tower, which the SMC used during morning fire test callouts. Senior officers and OIC Sports would call the TWRSPR and book foam.

The "foam" was "blood and bone", well before the carcongenic AFFF or "light water".

"Proceed to grid reference A6 and make foam", is one I remember. A6 was the 18th green. From memory Q11 was the rose garden behind the main parade ground flag pole.

Ah, the memories.....

MJG

There was a TV documentary program not long back in which it was demonstrated that every single piece of a slaughtered cow was put to use from meat joints to guitar string. The final statement concerned the animals hooves; which it was said went into the making of foam for airfield crash tenders.

Foam for loam
 

In the 70's I used to collect time-ex drums of foam maker from the Lyneham fire section. With careful use of a plastic bottle and the hose pipe nozzle I cold amuse the kids by covering the lawn in a blanket of fire suppressant.

I couldn't afford fertilizer in those days!

One of the tricks at Cranwell was to flush a WC and hold the ball valve to prevent the cistern from refilling whilst the contents of the reservoir of a hand held foam extinguisher were emptied into the cistern. The contents of the small inner cylinder were then emptied into the pan of the WC. The next flush would generate considerable quantities of foam.

OAaT,

We have our firex training annually in Nov . Landy carries 90L foam/water bottle . Cartridge expires annually so we get to have a go ... Nov '14 took camera to the field ....

1. Preparing for live ex . 2 of my bosses , both pilots . Mil. link is that one is a retired FAA NAM [ naval air mechanic ] .

http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/...7/PB200005.jpg

2. Result at hose end after overpressure valve lets got at bottle end . Myself and another young lady can testify that indeed it smells like bulls blood , tastes like BBs , deffo foamin like BB,... ergo it's BB.


http://i1056.photobucket.com/albums/...7/PB200025.jpg

Said Naval AM , recharges BB cartridge , water and pressurises bottle .
We're back online as a licenced airfield , and two of us are off home to dive into washing machine !

Rgds condor .

The SNCO ic Fire Section at a station I was based at, placed regular demands for the 'bone and blood' foam. The stuff would arrive and be issued to said section. In fact, we had a pretty good turnover of the stuff. Whilst we didn't have any aircraft, what we did have was a very nice walled garden which belonged to the manor house after which the station was named. In the walled garden were some very large greenhouses in which large crops of tomatoes and other veg were grown(SNCO ic Fire Section was also SNCO ic Station Garden). Some "manager" at Harrogate queried one of our demands and asked what aircraft type we operated... then stopped further issues as the stuff was "for use by flying stations only". :(

Runway fertiliser
 

It is a little known fact that short runways can benefit from applications of the old bulls blood.

RAF Bassingbourne early 1962, Gp Capt Clementi commanding - the Canberra OCU.

On the CO's direct instructions, all of the student aircrew were assembled on the runway in their greatcoats. I say all, but I know now that the older hands will have found other things to do. I was young and impressionable and did what I was told. Our job was to empty the stinky drums and spread big brown patches down the middle of the runway, from one end to the other.

It was clear to see where the product had been laid, as the rest of the runway was covered in deep snow. As far as I remember, nothing disturbed the material until the snow melted away. The experiment seems to have been a failure as the runway remained more or less 2000 yards long, until much later the army let someone take much of it away.

In the first three years of my commissioned service, I only wore the greatcoat one other time. Five of my fellow students, packed in a Mini returning from a frosty night in Cambridge, were hit broadside by a fast moving lorry. We all did our best at one or other of the consequent funerals.

I was on 390 MU from early '66 to mid '68. During that period a bulk fuel transfer at 389 MU went disastrously wrong (not earthed correctly?). We could see the flames/smoke then see one side die down then flare up again. It was said later that the foam process had failed due to out of date materials. The saddest part was that some of the people involved had dived into a nearby monsoon drain only for burning fuel to follow them. All hearsay as being a mere erk at the time, I was never privy to any of the official findings.

Lyneham Lad - I was station fire officer for the event you describe, and as you may imagine the day is etched onto my memory. I was interviewed extensively at the Board of Inquiry, as you might expect. To the best of my recollection, I don't think there was any question that the foam was of poor quality. There is no doubt the fire took what seemed like forever to get under control as it was burning inside the bowser's tank and proved very difficult to smother from the outside.

That said, this made no difference to the casualties, all of whom had been severely burned at the outset, and were already being evacuated to SMC as the fire crews got to work. As I recall the total death toll was four, including a flight sergeant who succumbed after 2 weeks in Changi Hospital. One thing we did manage to achieve was to stop the fire spreading to nearby vehicles and the MU hangar - at one stage we were damping down blistering paint on the hangar door.

I think I grew up that day (I was a young flying officer at the time) and realised that we were doing a pretty serious job.

TTN - thanks for the brief history to this sad event (& apologies for resurrecting the memories).