Okay, I finally got to see one of these things in action. This is the latest incarnation of the FIT-5.
I was teaching at the Northern Illinois Southern Wisconsin Fire Rescue Association Fire School in Monroe and our class involved live fire training in house trailers. We had an end bedroom set up with 2 bails of hay and 2 pallets. We ignited the fire and let it get to the point that fire was rolling heavy across the ceiling and much of the room was involved in fire. We were positioned in the hallway just outside the bedroom. The salesman activated the FIT and tossed it in the room. It failed to activate. The salesman activated the second FIT and tossed it into the room. Within roughly 10 seconds it activated and the entire room was full of dry chemical dust. The fire was immediately knocked down. Not out, but knocked down. The room was filled with the dust from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Because there was no door for the bedroom it was not possible to entirely isolate the bedroom. After roughly minute I got up and ventilated the room, at that point the fire came back pretty quickly.
My conclusions are as follows:
1) Under the right circumstances this could be a valuable way to buy time while waiting for fire apparatus to arrive. Such as in a chief's buggy.
2) The failure of the first device to activate was a little unsettling. The salesman admitted the triggering device had been problematic and these devices were old stock and all the new manufactured devices have a new trggering device and according to him the reliability issues have been resolved.
3) I believe being able to control the openings is crucial to the effectiveness of this device. In other words the tighter closed you can keep the area of deployment the more effective it will be.
4) Cost is still a concern at $995 per unit. It has dropped from its original cost of around $1500. But is still quite pricey. But...if you balance the cost against saving someone's house perhaps it isn't such a bad deal after all.
5) I visualize this primarily being used in more suburban, or rural, situations where response of fire apparatus may be delayed due to staffing issues or travel time to remote areas of the district.
6) The salespeople made it clear they would be happy to come out to my FD to demonstrate this device when and if we had a practice house burn in our area.
I am not over being skeptical but I am more open minded to the possibilities that this tool may have some practical use in some specific cases.
I was teaching at the Northern Illinois Southern Wisconsin Fire Rescue Association Fire School in Monroe and our class involved live fire training in house trailers. We had an end bedroom set up with 2 bails of hay and 2 pallets. We ignited the fire and let it get to the point that fire was rolling heavy across the ceiling and much of the room was involved in fire. We were positioned in the hallway just outside the bedroom. The salesman activated the FIT and tossed it in the room. It failed to activate. The salesman activated the second FIT and tossed it into the room. Within roughly 10 seconds it activated and the entire room was full of dry chemical dust. The fire was immediately knocked down. Not out, but knocked down. The room was filled with the dust from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Because there was no door for the bedroom it was not possible to entirely isolate the bedroom. After roughly minute I got up and ventilated the room, at that point the fire came back pretty quickly.
My conclusions are as follows:
1) Under the right circumstances this could be a valuable way to buy time while waiting for fire apparatus to arrive. Such as in a chief's buggy.
2) The failure of the first device to activate was a little unsettling. The salesman admitted the triggering device had been problematic and these devices were old stock and all the new manufactured devices have a new trggering device and according to him the reliability issues have been resolved.
3) I believe being able to control the openings is crucial to the effectiveness of this device. In other words the tighter closed you can keep the area of deployment the more effective it will be.
4) Cost is still a concern at $995 per unit. It has dropped from its original cost of around $1500. But is still quite pricey. But...if you balance the cost against saving someone's house perhaps it isn't such a bad deal after all.
5) I visualize this primarily being used in more suburban, or rural, situations where response of fire apparatus may be delayed due to staffing issues or travel time to remote areas of the district.
6) The salespeople made it clear they would be happy to come out to my FD to demonstrate this device when and if we had a practice house burn in our area.
I am not over being skeptical but I am more open minded to the possibilities that this tool may have some practical use in some specific cases.
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