We’ve just received some information and photographs of a new Foam Extinguishing Vehicle built by our customer Desautel at Nievroz, in France. It is one of two for BASF SE’s Ludwigshafen plant.
The new vehicles replace two older ones, and aim to significantly improve performance. The new vehicles are more independent and carry a greater load of foam. They have a rotary extinguishing pumps powerful enough to deliver the full flow and a complete foam mixing system on board, including two Albany gear pumps.
Desautel had already manufactured similar vehicles for fire brigades at different refineries across France and Germany.
They are based on Mercedes Benz Actros chassis. They have KSB (Frankenthal) rotary extinguishing pumps and each vehicle has two Albany GE AP13DH gear pumps for the fire fighting foam. Up to 11,000 litres of foam can be carried on the vehicle in its tank. The vehicle can fill up with foam compound automatically at the same time as mixing foam with the main water flow. The second foam compound pump can also take over mixing from the first foam compound pump.
Each foam pump has an independent hydraulic drive. Pump 1 is driven off the vehicle chassis and pump 2 has a separate drive from a Hatz diesel engine, also carried on the vehicle.
There is a heating system for the foam tank which is initiated at 5°C. The tank also has an automatic circulation system.
The rooftop thrower is an Alco electrically driven, pressure stabilised with automatic parking system. The thrower nozzle can be switched between full jet and spray. It has a flow rate of between 4,000 and 20,000 litres per minute.
These new vehicles are very flexible and can cover a range of tasks due to the wide range of the pump curve and the very accurate foam compound dispensing. At Albany, we are proud to be associated with these vehicles and expect to see many more making a contribution to safety in their workplaces.
