JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The nation’s drive to use more alternative fuel carries a danger many communities have been slow to recognize: Ethanol fires are harder to put out than gasoline fires and require a special type of firefighting foam.
Many fire departments around the country don’t have the foam, don’t have enough of it or are not well-trained in how to apply it, firefighting experts say. It is also more expensive than conventional foam.
“It is not unusual to find a fire department that is still just prepared to deal with traditional flammable liquids,” said Ed Plaugher, director of national programs for the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
The problem is that water doesn’t put out ethanol fires, and the foam that has been used since the 1960s to smother ordinary gasoline blazes doesn’t work well against the grain-alcohol fuel.
Wrecks involving ordinary cars and trucks are not the major concern. They carry modest amounts of fuel, and it is typically only 10 percent ethanol. Conventional foam can usually extinguish such fires.
The real danger involves the many tanker trucks and rail cars that are rolling out of the Corn Belt with huge quantities of 85 or 95 percent ethanol.
“Now, the most common hazardous material has a new twist to it,” said Mike Schultz, a firefighter who manned a foam gun during a recent blaze in Missouri.
One death already
The risk is more than theoretical. Over the past several years, ethanol accidents have triggered evacuations and fires from Texas to Minnesota, injuring several people and killing at least one person.
Water is not used against gasoline fires because it can spread the blaze and cause the flames to run down into drains and sewers.
Instead, foam is used to form a blanket on top of the burning gasoline and snuff out the flames. But ethanol — a type of grain alcohol often distilled from corn — eats through that foam and continues to burn.
Such fires require a special alcohol-resistant foam that relies on long-chain molecules known as polymers to smother the flames.
Industry officials say the special foam costs about 30 percent more than the standard product, at around $90 to $115 for a five-gallon container.
Fighting ethanol fires also requires a change in tactics. Brent Gaspard, marketing director for Williams Fire & Hazard Control Inc., an industrial firefighting company in Texas, said firefighters cannot just attack an ethanol fire with foam.
“If you just plunge the foam into the fuel, it’s going to be less effective. You have to let the foam gently run across the surface so you create a shield,” he said.
Colo. training lacking
Andrew Marsh, fire chief of the Federal Heights Fire Department, said his department has not yet had to fight an ethanol-fueled fire that was problematic.
The department is a member of a hazardous-materials consortium involving fire departments in Jefferson and Adams counties that has the special foam to fight ethanol blazes, he said.
The potential problem is a concern and will only get bigger as ethanol is used more, Marsh said.
An ethanol plant is planned for Weld County, Marsh said. The transportation of the fuel in Colorado could present safety issues, he said.
To help firefighters know when high concentrations of ethanol are burning, the U.S. Transportation Department has approved a rule requiring signs on trucks hauling fuel that is more than 10 percent ethanol.
Paul Cooke, executive director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Association, said industry experts have been training fire departments about the hazards of ethanol fires, but not enough departments are getting the training.
He said metro firefighters are more likely to get the training than small volunteer firefighters.
“I would venture to say it’s not enough,” Cooke said.
Denver Post staff writer Kirk Mitchell contributed to this report.
