Revolutionising Firefighting: The Innovation Behind Attackspike Nozzles
Ryan O’Donnell has had a long career in the firefighting industry. As the former Bullex CEO, director of Haagen Fire Training Products, and volunteer firefighter in upstate New York, O’Donnell is regarded as one of the most innovative minds in the sector. It will therefore come as no surprise to those who know him to hear that he has embarked on a new venture, one that aims to change the way fires are fought in North America and the rest of the world, and that also focuses on modern firefighting techniques such as the transitory attack principle and gas cooling.
O’Donnell co-founded Flashpoint Fire with another fire sector innovator. Todd Nixon is Platoon Chief of Strathcona County Emergency Services in Canada, and founder and lead instructor at AOYS Fire Training, a fire service training organisation dedicated to reducing firefighter injuries and deaths through the delivery of modern, interactive training programmes such as the Blue Card Command Certification Programme. The pair were both members of the NFPA 1700 committee, working on producing a guide for structural firefighting for the NFPA centred on evidence-based practices and research.
‘The committee’s objective was to create a standard that aids the promotion and sharing of tactics that we know work, based on research,’ explains O’Donnell.
‘Todd and I had met before because we taught together. During our NFPA meetings, we started to discuss how we could improve firefighting tactics and equipment, and we also asked ourselves how we could get best practice more widely accepted. We realised that there are certain factors that are required before innovation can happen in the fire service, and the triggers that are required for firefighters to change their behaviour and operational tactics. It is one thing to have a product but it is another for it to be used properly and in a tactical manner.’
O’Donnell explains that there are around a 100 firefighter line-of-duty deaths annually in the US.
‘Even though this number has decreased recently, every death is still one too many. If you read the line-of-duty death reports, a recurring cause of firefighter fatalities is the rapid change in fire behaviour fuelled by a change in the flow path and the high hydrocarbon load that is present in modern buildings. Fire dynamics change very rapidly in those situations.’
O’Donnell explains that a window can break and change the flow path during an interior scenario. If a crew thought they were on the inlet side, this can suddenly change and they can find themselves on the exhaust side.
‘In North America, training is driven by NFPA standards. However, in my opinion, there is not enough fire behaviour training. Most firefighters only receive a few hours of formal fire behaviour training. If firefighters are better equipped to understand the fire dynamics on scene, they’ll be better prepared to choose the right tactics and tools for the conditions.
He adds that while it is encouraging to see more and more departments reading the research studies, investing in training and adopting modern, proven tactics such as transitory attack, but it is a slow process.
‘UL Fire Safety Research Institute and the Illinois Fire Science Institute (IFSI) are major drivers of modern firefighting insight and education. They’ve done great work in getting the fire service involved in the research and I think that’s helped drive change on the fireground.’
O’Donnell believes that UL’s research on air entrainment, water mapping, and steam production, along with IFSI’s research on the impacts of water application to victims, has been especially insightful, because it has helped to dispel some long-standing myths about when and how to flow water.
When O’Donnell and Nixon were brainstorming about how they could put their skillsets together, they identified three key elements that underline what it means to be a firefighter: tactics, training, and tools. On the training and tactics side, they agreed that there was already a lot of work being carried out by IFSI and UL FSRI. However, what they both felt was lacking was the right range of tools to support the new tactics that have developed as a result of research.
‘A major insight from the research is that the faster water can be applied to the fire, the better. Water application improves interior conditions and reduces temperatures, which is good for victims, interior crews, and fire control efforts.
Another insight is that most fires are ventilation-limited, so limiting the air that gets to the fire before water application limits the fire’s growth. This is what led us to small-diameter piercing nozzles that could be more rapidly deployed,’ explains O’Donnell.
‘We were aware of the Fognail, which has been quite successful in Sweden over the past few decades, and we had also seen high-pressure water mist lances. Both can accomplish the fast-water-on-the-fire objective, and make use of fine droplets, but neither have seen wide adoption in North America.
We wanted to understand why there weren’t more departments using these tools, and what we could do to design a tool that firefighters in North America, and globally, would more readily adopt.
‘We conducted market and technical research into nozzle engineering for controlled droplet size and partnered with a research laboratory outside Washington DC to help us design, validate, and test the concepts.’
O’Donnell and Nixon set out to develop a nozzle with improved flow rates, durability and strength, that could produce a wider range of droplet sizes.
They also needed to ensure it could be deployed quickly by a single firefighter and didn’t require specialised pumps or equipment.
The Attackspike range of piercing nozzles was born, and Flashpoint Fire Equipment was registered as a company. Ultra-fine droplets are a proven technology and have been in use all over the world over the last few decades. However, the Attackspike nozzles have been engineered differently to conventional fog nozzles, producing both large droplets to get to the seat of the fire, and small droplets to absorb energy and cool superheated gases.
Large droplets have the mass and motion to penetrate superheated gases and smoke and reach the seat of the fire. This water covers walls, floors, ceilings, and the contents of the room. It stops pyrolysis and creates a barrier between the fuel and the fire. Water that reaches the seat of the fire also cools the fire, taking away an element of the fire triangle. Small droplets, on the other hand, evaporate and rapidly absorb energy and reduce temperatures while contracting the superheated gases in the compartment.
Small droplets, on the other hand, evaporate and rapidly absorb energy and reduce temperatures while contracting the superheated gases in the compartment.
It is well established that the modern-day fuel load in compartments has increased significantly compared to 20 years ago. There has been an increase in plastic (hydrocarbon-based) materials used in dwellings and offices. Therefore, conditions in interior fires tend to be rich in incomplete combustion products; there is more smoke in these environments, adding more fuel to the fire.
This is the reason why O’Donnell and Nixon designed the nozzles with the capability to produce both large and fine droplets. O’Donnell explains that selecting the right droplet size and distributing this strategically onto a fire with limited ventilation, while preventing any additional air from entering, can rapidly cool and control the fire.
‘Flowing at 68 to 87lpm (18 to 23gpm) at 100psi (690 kpa or 6.89 Bar), Attackspike nozzles can knock-down and control the fire while additional crews arrive or initial crews prepare for an interior attack.’
Flashpoint Fire Equipment has developed three different types of nozzles (tips) for a range of applications.
The Mist Tip creates a radial stream pattern consisting of a curtain of ultra-fine droplets. The water mist fills the compartment, absorbing energy, suffocating the fire, and reducing temperatures.
Water droplets are small enough to become entrained in the airflow to the fire. The inlet airflow brings water to the fire.
‘One thing that we have learnt in fire school in the USA is that steam expands 1,700 times. There is a big fear of steam in the fire service, particularly over here. What we are not taught is that when you cool super-heated gases, they will contract. In most cases, when you start adding water to a compartment fire and add thermal ballast, the gases will initially contract rather than expand. The Mist Tip has been designed for confined spaces and areas where you do not know where the seat of the fire is.’
The diamond-shaped Attack Tip enables the firefighter to carry out a directional attack with medium to large droplets.
The large droplets travel to the seat of the fire and coat the fuel in the compartment, while the medium droplets provide a cooling effect.
O’Donnell explains that this nozzle has been specially designed for compartment fires where the seat has already been discovered. He adds that this is the longest reaching Attackspike with a forward-facing directional stream.
‘This is the tip to use when you have established the seat of the fire. Due to the different droplet sizes, the fire will be both suppressed and extinguished.’
However, it is the Shield Tip that O’Donnell and Nixon are most excited about.
‘What we found through our research and testing is that we can create a pattern that simulates the effect of two streams nearly colliding. When they fully collide, you get an extremely fine mist. However, when they don’t collide, the streams go straight out and the air resistance breaks up the droplets, so you get a type of water mist with large droplets, like in our Attack Tip. The Shield Tip has streams which glance off each other, or partially impinge, so that fine mist is created where streams make contact, and large droplets are produced where the streams remain intact. It is having two different nozzles in one tool.’
The Shield Tip provides a wide-angle, 180-degree coverage. It has been designed with patent-pending partial-impingement water jets, which create a wide range of droplet sizes, delivered in a conical pattern. This nozzle can coat fuel, knock down fire, and absorb energy. It has been optimised for attic and basement fires where cooling hot gases and creating a wide water reach are both very important.
The nozzles are connected to a conventional 2.5cm (1in) fire hose or a 4.45cm (1.75in) hose, powered by a normal fire engine pump. There are two types of piercing nozzles available: standard, which is 74cm long (29in), and XL, which is 152cm (5ft). The XL nozzle is designed to be deployed through a roof from an aerial device or up through a soffit from the ground.
O’Donnell explains that it was very important to design tools that work without any specialised equipment and without exceedingly high pump pressure.
‘One application where these nozzles could really help is in high-rise fires, because of their compartmentalised nature. Also, the Attackspikes can be connected to standpipes and they will still work at a pressure of 50 psi. The droplet size will get larger on lower pressure, but at 50 psi it is still beneficial.’
The Attackspikes have been tested with three different fire departments ranging from large metropolitan fire services to smaller rural services, and they are working on white papers right now.
‘The departments are evaluating the equipment as something that they want to add to their front-line practice. They are looking to compile the results, and put their papers together and present them,’ says O’Donnell, who adds that he believes Attackspikes will kickstart a philosophy change in the US.
‘There are a handful of departments that have really embraced this type of attack. They are getting good results, which they are sharing with their neighbours and insurance companies.
The insurance companies are noticing there is a significant reduction in the amount of loss when fires are fought like this.’
Of course, the effectiveness of any tool relies on the skills of the person using it, but with knowledge of fire behaviour increasing, these nozzles might just be a key factor in changing the way fires are fought in the future.
