The ability to measure the physiological demands and air requirements during simulated firefighting tasks while wearing full personal protective ensemble (PPE) and positive pressure self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) has been a difficult process based on undeveloped technology. The capability of integrating a portable Cosmed K4b2 breath by breath gas collection system with a standard SCBA has permitted a novel approach to investigate metabolic demands and ventilatory requirements while breathing through the same system that would be used in an actual fire scene. The purpose of this study was to determine the physiological demands and air requirements during three large structure firefighting scenarios: (1) maximal high rise stair climb, (2) 5th floor high rise scenario, and (3) subway system scenario. The hypotheses were that (a) the 5th floor high rise scenario would be the most physically demanding and that (b) the years of service as a firefighter would result in decreased total air consumption during the three scenarios. Thirty-three male and three female healthy firefighters performed each of the three tasks at an equivalent pace similar to what would be expected at a fire scene. Scenario (1) consisted of stair climbing until consuming 55% of a typical SCBA air cylinder and then descending to a safe exit. Scenario (2) comprised a 5 floor stair climb, hose drag and room search, forcible entry, victim rescue drag, and 5 floor descent. Scenario (3) involved a stair descent, tunnel walk, portable ladder walk, ladder setup, victim rescue drag, tunnel walk, and stair ascent. Average maximum floors climbed for scenario (1) and mean completion times for scenarios (2) and (3) were 20 ± 2.5 floors, 5 min 3 s ± 57 s, and 12 min 5 s ± 1 min 10 s, respectively. Mean VO2 during each of the scenarios were 3168 ± 878 ml/min, 2947 ± 461 ml/min, 2217 ± 371 ml/min, corresponding to a relative VO2 of 35.5 ± 9.1 ml/kg/min, 33.1 ± 4.6 ml/kg/min, and 25.2 ± 4.6 ml/kg/min. In relation to the peak treadmill oxygen uptake, the three scenarios revealed that firefighters were working at 70 ± 10%, 65 ± 10%, and 49 ± 8% of VO2peak, respectively. Average heart rate values for the three scenarios were 170 ± 13 bpm, 160 ± 14 bpm, and 139 ± 17 bpm, corresponding to 88 ± 4%, 88 ± 6%, and 76 ± 7% of HRpeak, respectively. These results indicate that the most physiologically demanding scenario was the maximal stair climb, followed by the 5th floor high rise and subway system scenarios. Respiratory exchange ratio was consistently greater than 1.0 during the maximal stair climb and 5th floor high rise scenarios indicating that a considerable amount of energy was derived from anaerobic metabolism. With regards to the air requirements for each of the scenarios, total air consumption revealed averaged values of 74.9 ± 6%, 48.0 ± 7.0%, and 59.9 ±5.6%, of the air in a typical 30-min cylinder, respectively. These data also revealed that increasing age of the firefighter as well as increasing years of experience as a firefighter result in significant correlations with greater air consumption to complete the given task (p < 0.05). Contrary to the hypotheses, the maximal stair climb scenario appeared to be the most physically demanding while increased years of service as a firefighter resulted in greater air consumption. Furthermore, it appears that firefighters who are able to produce more power per kg of body mass have greater performance times and more efficient air consumption. These data are instrumental in quantifying the physiological demands and air requirements during simulated firefighting tasks while breathing on a positive pressure SCBA.

The ability to measure the physiological demands and air requirements during simulated firefighting tasks while wearing full personal protective ensemble (PPE) and positive pressure self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) has been a difficult process based on undeveloped technology. The capability of integrating a portable Cosmed K4b2 breath by breath gas collection system with a standard SCBA has permitted a novel approach to investigate metabolic demands and ventilatory requirements while breathing through the same system that would be used in an actual fire scene. The purpose of this study was to determine the physiological demands and air requirements during three large structure firefighting scenarios: (1) maximal high rise stair climb, (2) 5th floor high rise scenario, and (3) subway system scenario. The hypotheses were that (a) the 5th floor high rise scenario would be the most physically demanding and that (b) the years of service as a firefighter would result in decreased total air consumption during the three scenarios. Thirty-three male and three female healthy firefighters performed each of the three tasks at an equivalent pace similar to what would be expected at a fire scene. Scenario (1) consisted of stair climbing until consuming 55% of a typical SCBA air cylinder and then descending to a safe exit. Scenario (2) comprised a 5 floor stair climb, hose drag and room search, forcible entry, victim rescue drag, and 5 floor descent. Scenario (3) involved a stair descent, tunnel walk, portable ladder walk, ladder setup, victim rescue drag, tunnel walk, and stair ascent. Average maximum floors climbed for scenario (1) and mean completion times for scenarios (2) and (3) were 20 ± 2.5 floors, 5 min 3 s ± 57 s, and 12 min 5 s ± 1 min 10 s, respectively. Mean VO2 during each of the scenarios were 3168 ± 878 ml/min, 2947 ± 461 ml/min, 2217 ± 371 ml/min, corresponding to a relative VO2 of 35.5 ± 9.1 ml/kg/min, 33.1 ± 4.6 ml/kg/min, and 25.2 ± 4.6 ml/kg/min. In relation to the peak treadmill oxygen uptake, the three scenarios revealed that firefighters were working at 70 ± 10%, 65 ± 10%, and 49 ± 8% of VO2peak, respectively. Average heart rate values for the three scenarios were 170 ± 13 bpm, 160 ± 14 bpm, and 139 ± 17 bpm, corresponding to 88 ± 4%, 88 ± 6%, and 76 ± 7% of HRpeak, respectively. These results indicate that the most physiologically demanding scenario was the maximal stair climb, followed by the 5th floor high rise and subway system scenarios. Respiratory exchange ratio was consistently greater than 1.0 during the maximal stair climb and 5th floor high rise scenarios indicating that a considerable amount of energy was derived from anaerobic metabolism. With regards to the air requirements for each of the scenarios, total air consumption revealed averaged values of 74.9 ± 6%, 48.0 ± 7.0%, and 59.9 ±5.6%, of the air in a typical 30-min cylinder, respectively. These data also revealed that increasing age of the firefighter as well as increasing years of experience as a firefighter result in significant correlations with greater air consumption to complete the given task (p < 0.05). Contrary to the hypotheses, the maximal stair climb scenario appeared to be the most physically demanding while increased years of service as a firefighter resulted in greater air consumption. Furthermore, it appears that firefighters who are able to produce more power per kg of body mass have greater performance times and more efficient air consumption. These data are instrumental in quantifying the physiological demands and air requirements during simulated firefighting tasks while breathing on a positive pressure SCBA.

Finding a fire inside of a structure without knowing its conditions poses a dangerous threat to the safety of firefighters. As a result, robots are being explored to increase awareness of the conditions inside structures before having firefighter enter. This thesis presents a method that autonomously guides a robot to the location of a fire inside a structure. The method uses classification of fire, smoke, and other fire environment objects to calculate a weighted probability. Weighted probability is a measurement that indicates the probability that a given region on an infra-red image will lead to fire. This method was tested on large-scale fire videos with a robot moving towards a fire and it is also compared to following the highest temperatures on the image. Sending a robot to find a fire has the potential to save the lives of firefighters. / Master of Science

Active fire protection systems are an essential fire safety management tool, particularly in potentially high financial and risk consequence scenarios. In the UK and Europe over recent decades regulatory changes have been successful in creating an environment in which more innovation can take place. Increased numbers of fixed firefighting system types are now available to the user. However, not all systems offered are equal in terms of; suitability, cost, maturity of supporting knowledge, and overall performance or in-service reliability. Understanding of the systems performance and its limitations and how to match this to the assessed fire risk is incomplete among users. Experts are observing increasing numbers of what they consider to be poor fixed firefighting system choices leading to weaker fire safety designs, which is a cause of concern. Therefore the research aim is to verify that these concerns are founded and, that being the case, to develop a decision support system and related supporting resources to further this aspect of fire safety education and enable users to make better informed system selections. Thus, the focus of this research has been to develop a fixed firefighting system selection tool to complement existing legislation, which incorporates logic, rules and fire safety educational resources in a variety of formats to aid the fire safety design process. A variety of largely heuristic techniques have been used to aggregate data to form knowledge to underpin fixed firefighting system selection tool. In this form, the tool has been validated by experts as being a useful resource. The developed tool also provides ample opportunity for useful ongoing future development. The work recognises that cost and benefit are critical in the selection process. Supporting resources have been incorporated into the tool to assist users in evaluating the levels of reliability they might expect from a system in their circumstances. This tool has now been exposed to a wider audience of experts as part of an evaluation process. Findings include: that the tool is an innovative approach to promoting good fire safety designs, the tool efficiently provides useful fire safety education to users and the developed supporting resources which consider firefighting system reliability are helpful. This thesis and reference papers summarise the key stages of this research and tool development. The thesis concludes by outlining the progress achieved by this work and recommendations arising.

No description available.

This research is an account of Pikangikum Anishinaabeg experiences as provincial forest firefighters in the Red Lake region of Ontario. It illustrates historic and contemporary community roles in firefighting in light of institutional changes that have affected their level of involvement. It describes relationships between Pikangikum Anishinaabeg and Euro-Canadian people within the institution of fire control and details how these relationships have developed and changed since the early years of forest firefighting up to recent times. This story emerged through individual and collaborative analysis of documentary sources and empirical data from interview and participant observation settings. It finds that Pikangikum people excelled within the fire program at Red Lake from the 1930s to the 1970s by combining their pre-existing land-based knowledge with the hands-on training of Ontario Fire Branch representatives. This study also documents a period of decline in Pikangikum people’s presence on seasonal fire crews that began in the mid 1970s as Ontario adopted an increasingly standardized, technocratic approach to firefighting. It concludes by forwarding recommendations and highlighting recent developments which may hold the potential to reinvigorate Pikangikum representation on seasonal fire crews.

This research is an account of Pikangikum Anishinaabeg experiences as provincial forest firefighters in the Red Lake region of Ontario. It illustrates historic and contemporary community roles in firefighting in light of institutional changes that have affected their level of involvement. It describes relationships between Pikangikum Anishinaabeg and Euro-Canadian people within the institution of fire control and details how these relationships have developed and changed since the early years of forest firefighting up to recent times. This story emerged through individual and collaborative analysis of documentary sources and empirical data from interview and participant observation settings. It finds that Pikangikum people excelled within the fire program at Red Lake from the 1930s to the 1970s by combining their pre-existing land-based knowledge with the hands-on training of Ontario Fire Branch representatives. This study also documents a period of decline in Pikangikum people’s presence on seasonal fire crews that began in the mid 1970s as Ontario adopted an increasingly standardized, technocratic approach to firefighting. It concludes by forwarding recommendations and highlighting recent developments which may hold the potential to reinvigorate Pikangikum representation on seasonal fire crews.

L’extinction de feux de liquides inflammables sur des installations industrielles telles que les dépôts de carburant ou les raffineries entraîne l'utilisation de milliers de mètres cubes d'eau, composé majeur des mousses anti-incendie. Ces dernières contiennent généralement des tensioactifs hydrocarbonés ainsi que des tensioactifs fluorés qui se retrouvent dans les eaux d'extinction, ainsi que les suies et les restes de solvants. Les tensioactifs fluorés jouent un rôle clé dans l'efficacité des mousses anti-incendie en raison de leur nature chimique particulière. En raison de la présence des tensioactifs fluorés, le traitement actuel de l'eau d'extinction d'incendie est l'incinération dans des incinérateurs haute température et résistant aux halogènes. Les tensioactifs sont des composés amphiphiles qui ont comme propriétés d'abaisser la tension superficielle de l'eau et de former des agrégats en solution : les micelles. Les tensioactifs peuvent également s'adsorber aux interfaces ainsi qu'aux surfaces solides, et éventuellement y former des agrégats de surface, analogues aux micelles en solution. L’objectif industriel de la présente thèse est de proposer une unité mobile de traitement de ces eaux afin de concentrer les composés fluorés et limiter les volumes à incinérer. Les critères de sélection des procédés que nous avons retenus sont les suivants : compacité, peu ou pas de produits chimiques ou solides nécessaires. L’objectif scientifique de ce travail est de mieux comprendre le comportement de ces composés au cours des procédés d’électrocoagulation/filtration et d’osmose inverse. Des essais préliminaires ont été réalisés et ont permis de choisir les procédés suivant : l'électrocoagulation couplée à la filtration comme prétraitement pour séparer les particules en suspension et les traces d’émulsions éventuelles de la phase aqueuse et l'osmose inverse comme traitement pour concentrer les tensioactifs fluorés. A l'échelle du laboratoire, l'électrocoagulation, permettant le retrait de la matière en suspension, a été optimisée pour des eaux d'extinction d'incendie pilotes et un mécanisme a été proposé. L'efficacité de ce procédé a ensuite été vérifiée sur un pilote industriel. L'osmose inverse d'eaux d'extinction d'incendie pilotes pré-traitées par électrocoagulation/filtration a montré de forts taux de rétention du tensioactif fluoré. Une comparaison de différents matériaux membranaires a été réalisée sur un module d’osmose inverse plan avec des solutions modèles. Des essais de filtration de longue durée, à l’échelle pilote, ont permis de suivre l’évolution de la rétention des tensioactifs et du flux de perméat. Ces données ont été utilisées pour réaliser le dimensionnement d’une unité mobile de post traitement d’eau d’extinction d’incendie. Les perspectives de ce travail sont les suivantes : La prise en charge de la réalisation d’une unité mobile devrait être menée par un partenaire de DuPont de Nemours qu’il reste à identifier. L’étude sur la modification de l’état de surface des membranes est poursuivie dans le cadre d’une nouvelle thèse et permettra à terme de mieux choisir les conditions opératoires de filtration et de nettoyage au cours des procédés membranaires et ainsi d’améliorer les performances du procédé. / Extinguishment of large solvent fire leads to the production of fire fighting water, which are collected thanks to the design of industrial infrastructures. Depending on the nature of the firefighting foam used, the resulting water may require the removal of fluorinated surfactants potentially present. After decantation of the organic phase, fire fighting waters essentially contain surfactants. Surfactants are amphiphilic chemicals having the ability to lower both interfacial and surface tensions by adsorbing in an oriented fashion at interface. Surfactant can form micellar aggregates in solution and on interfaces under certain conditions, and have a pronounced influence on interfacial phenomena. Hence, before considering any water treatment process, interfacial science and surfactant were introduced. This work has a dual purpose. The industrial purpose is to provide an economically viable alternative to water incineration. The foreseen unit will have to be mobile and able to extract fluorinated surfactants from water at a rate of 1-4.5 m3h-1 (20,000 m3 in 4-6 months). The scientific purpose of this work is the study of the behavior of surfactants in the context of water treatment processes. The state of the art of relevant water treatment processes and an experimental screening with real firefighting water permitted to identify two steps as likely to fit the constraints of a mobile unit: electrocoagulationfiltration coupled with reverse osmosis. The electrocoagulation process followed by filtration was applied to pilot, model and industrial firefighting waters. This process was found to remove efficiently the unwanted turbidity from pilot firefighting waters. Current knowledge about the separation mechanisms of small organic molecules in reverse osmosis has been reviewed, and rejection as well as flux decline were related to membrane, solution, and solute properties. Polyamide and cellulose acetate membrane materials were screened in a flat sheet cell. The stabilities of rejection and flux decline were confirmed during longer tests (several days) on an industrial pilot with the most appropriate membrane. A final design study confirmed the possibility to combine electrocoagulation-filtration and reverse osmosis to treat firefighting waters.

The surfactants have become a common part of everyday human life. For their properties they are used as aditive components of foam extinguishers used in large quantities for area fires fighting. This thesis deals with the ecotoxicological evaluation of commercially available fire-fighting agents Sthamex F 15, Moussol APS F 15, Finiflam F 15, Expyrol F 15 and Pyrocool B, which are made on the basis of surfactants. In the framework of this thesis the ecotoxicological effects of selected extinquishing agents were assessed through aquatic ecotoxicity tests with organisms Thamnocephalus platyurus, Daphnia magna, dicotyledonous plants Lemna minor and white mustard seeds Sinapis alba. Via tests of contaminated soils leachate the effect of soil sorption complex on the ecotoxicological effects was evaluated. Extinguishing agents were further considered in terms of acute ecotoxicity for soil organism via ecotoxicological tests in the contact arrangement using earthworm Eisenia fetida and lettuce seeds Lactuca sativa. To assess the influence of biodegradation under different conditions on ecotoxicological effects the seed germination tests of L. sativa were conducted with hindsight. According to the results of the individual tests this work discuss the need for further evaluation of the negative influence of selected agents, while paying special attention to legislative measures.

With the continued rise in wildfires in California, and around the world, technological advancements are needed to improve the safety and effectiveness of wildland firefighters. One area that provides an opportunity for such development is the deployment of temporary communications networks. Currently, radio repeaters are set up on mountain tops in the response area; such repeaters do not provide flexibility once installed, still have blind spots, and require the time of valuable assets like helicopters to install. This thesis will establish the feasibility of airborne radio repeaters for wildland firefighting. In order to successfully demonstrate the feasibility of such an airborne system, the resulting system should be rapidly deployable, improve communications range and reliability, and be compatible with existing regulations and guidelines. The design process for the repeater payload is described, as well as important troubleshooting steps. The resulting product is then compared to the initial requirements through testing and observation. Although audio filtering provided by off-the-shelf handheld radios prevented the repeater from functioning as intended, the proposed 2m/70cm dual-band digital communications relay was capable of being carried by the Altavian Nova and was able to successfully demonstrate the feasibility of such a system. As such it will be an important contribution to communications needed for fighting future wildfires.