By Rod Carringer
One of the biggest challenges any fire department can face is a smoldering mountain of scrap tires. Historically, these fires quickly consume both human and financial resources as they burn uncontrolled for long periods of time. It isn’t unusual to find that overtime costs, equipment maintenance and rentals, and cleanup costs can place a huge financial burden on a small jurisdiction.
Typically, more than 242 million tires are discarded every year, and of the more than three billion tires being stored, only a little more than 25 percent will ever be recycled. It is easy to recognize that the storage and processing of scrap tires is a growing threat to all suppression agencies. When establishing a departmental standard operating guideline (SOG) for tire fires consider the following incident decision levels:
- Prevention: identification of storage locations, review and implementation of local, state and federal codes, code enforcement;
- Pre-fire Planning: locations of piles, scope of operations, size and make-up of pile, on-site suppression resources, mutual aid resources, hazards on-site, exposures, utilities on-site, and access and contacts;
- Strategic Suppression Activities: establishing an incident command structure, provide for personnel safety and accountability, provide for the health and safety of the general public, determine size and extent of fire, determine potential fire load and possible exposures;
- Tactical Suppression Activities: determine suppression plan – allow it to burn, drown it, or bury it;
- Environmental Considerations: air pollution and groundwater contamination issues, run off and containment issues, working relationships with state, local and federal environmental agencies;
- Firefighter Safety Concerns: exposure to toxic smoke and run off, potential for collapse of stacked tires, working around heavy equipment, and general long term fatigue, medical sector responsibilities.
If your prevention activities do fail, and there is a fire, though it may be overwhelming, there are several key elements that have been followed in the majority of successfully fought tire and dump fires:
- Good Identification and Pre-Planning
- Proper Size Up and Resource Commitment
- A Unified Incident Command Structure
- A Solid On-Site Safety Plan
One of the best tools currently available, if you take a “drown it” suppression strategy, is Class A Foam enhancement to your streams. The use of foaming agents has shown the greatest potential for rapid suppression of deep-seated tire fires. Though water is still the extinguishing agent of choice for heat absorption, its’ inherently high surface tension works against you as the water tends to bead up and roll away.
Foam not only reduces the surface tension of the water for quicker and deeper penetration into the pile, but also when expanded into finished foam, the bubbles will coat, cling, and stick to burning tires. This ability to smother the fire is the greatest benefit water additives and foams provide. This allows water to work on several sides of the fire tetrahedron simultaneously, ultimately reducing run-off, clean up, and total overall costs. Though there is a cost to using foam in a “Drown It” suppression strategy, the cost of the prolonged fire can be substantially worse.
For additional information on tire fires, tactics and strategies consider the following recources:
- The Task Force Tips “Suppression Strategies for Tire Fires” Workbook;
- FEMA’s “Scrap and Shredded Tire Fires – Special Report” and “Report on Tire Fires”
- The Scrap Tire Management Council – Washington D.C.; and
- NFPA Standard 231D
Rod Carringer has more than 28 years experience with the Center Township (IN) Fire and Rescue in he is an active firefighter and assists with department training. He is also Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Task Force Tips.
