FRA Certification Helpline: (216) 694-0240

(The Associated Press circulated the following by Chris Blank on February 26.)

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 ones 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 a low-concentration, 10 percent blend of ethanol and gasoline. A large amount of conventional foam can usually extinguish such fires.

Instead, the real danger involves the many tanker trucks and rail cars that are rolling out of the Corn Belt with huge quantities of 85 percent or 95 percent ethanol and carrying it to parts of the country unaccustomed to dealing with it.

The risk is more than theoretical. Over the past several years, ethanol accidents on highways, along railroads and in storehouses and refineries have triggered evacuations and fires, 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 of 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 molecules known as polymers to smother the flames.

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 charge ahead and attack an ethanol fire with foam.

“You have to let the foam gently run across the surface so you create a shield,” he said.

Industry officials said fire departments in just the past few months are becoming more knowledgeable about ethanol blazes and the special firefighting foam.