JEDDAH, 2 December 2004 — A stack of wooden pallets and a pile of old tires go up in flames, but within 30 seconds they are both extinguished single-handedly by one firefighter. Next, a car “catches fire” and it is also put out in seconds. Finally, 200 liters of diesel and 100 liters of gasoline is poured into an 11x9 meter pool and is set ablaze to demonstrate the power of a new water-mist based firefighting system in fighting gasoline and oil fires.
The tension grew as the heat from the fire surrounded the audience and as the smoke filled the sky, Vladimir Shashin, a Russian firefighter, extinguished the huge ball of flames in less than a minute using the same unit that put out the previous three fires.
This was all part of a demonstration held Tuesday at Jeddah’s Civil Defense Training Center.
All of the equipment on display and used in the demonstration was made by the German-based Advanced Firefighting Technology (AFT). The demonstration was organized by Batterjee Security Products, the AFT’s Kingdomwide agent, as part of a global effort to introduce the new technology of converting water into mist that can extinguish any type of fire.
The 600-liter AFT unit that was used in this demonstration was mounted on a small double cabin pickup truck commonly used in Saudi Arabia to demonstrate its lightweight and maneuverability. It uses a mixture of 540 liters of regular water and 60 liters of foam and it was able to eliminate all of these fires with less than 200 liters of its tank.
The patented nozzle technology creates a dense, smothering, non-toxic water-mist and is also capable of delivering short, high-power shots that can reach 18 to 20 meters.
The demonstration showed how this little truck was able to challenge any of the larger and heavily equipped fire trucks, as its one liter of “mist” was as effective as 16 liters of water from the common fire truck.
“Our firefighters are always on their toes and have an excellent track record of saving life and property. Civil Defense has also been updating its firefighting equipment, gadgets and agents. With the use of modern technologies their tasks will become easier,” said Col. Muhammad Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, Jeddah-based director-general of the Civil Defense. “Civil Defense is always open to induct new firefighting technologies.”
Col. Thamil Al-Harithy, head of the department of firefighting, other senior officials of Civil Defense, and business leaders including Abd Almajeed Batterjee, president of Batterjee Security Products, were among those present.
According to Majeed Batterjee, the small size of the new equipment will enable it to be used in the narrow confines of small streets and byways, for example in Balad in Jeddah and the older parts of Makkah and Madinah.
