NEW FOAM FIREFIGHTING SYSTEM SHOWS GREAT PROMISE IN TESTS.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

PALMDALE - For the past two weeks, vacant Palmdale homes have been going up in flames - but it's not arson, it's testing.

With the cooperation of the city's Community Redevelopment Agency and the help of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, a Minnesota company has been testing a firefighting system using foam to extinguish fires faster and with less water.

``We're testing the effectiveness of the use of class-A and compressed-air foam,'' said Jo Dutton, western regional manager for Foam Pro. ``So far we've found it to be much more effective than plain water.''

Sixteen vacant houses in the neighborhood south of Desert Sands Park have been burned in the past two weeks for testing. All were vacant, condemned homes set for demolition in a city cleanup effort. Other homes in the neighborhood were burned last month in training for firefighters.

The testing, which ends today, was watched by representatives of Foam Pro, which developed the proportioning system for mixing air, water and concentrated liquid detergent into foam; Astaris, which makes the foam concentrate; and Waterous/Pneumax, which makes the air compressing equipment used in Foam Pro's new system.

Foam has been used in firefighting for years, but Foam Pro has developed a new system in which air is injected into the detergent-water mix as it is pumped into the fire hoses.

When air is injected into the foam, the company said, the foam penetrates wood more effectively, allowing a fire to be extinguished more quickly.

To make Thursday's testing more realistic, the companies placed furniture into two homes that were set afire.

Computers in a van parked behind the houses recorded temperature and other data from sensors placed throughout the houses.

In the past, foam tests were done in laboratories, which officials said didn't provide readings as accurate as from burning a home.

In Thursday's tests, a furnished house was set ablaze and then put out with plain water. Officials said the temperature reached more than 1,450 degrees and the flames took nearly 20 minutes to extinguish.

A second house containing the same furniture was extinguished with the compressed-air foam solution. The temperature reached 1,450 degrees but dropped below 600 degrees less than two seconds after the foam was sprayed on, Dutton said.

The fire was out in less than eight minutes, using a third of the foam concentrate and less than half of the water of the earlier fire, Dutton said.

``These are just great systems, and from what I've seen they're extremely effective,'' said Los Angeles County Fire Department trainer Mark Mihaljevich, who was showing county firefighters Thursday how to work the foam equipment.