A better way to extinguish fire

Irfan Hadi Bin Mohd Fadzil1 (TB18127),Muhammad Naim Bin Amiddin2 (TB18133),Mohamad ‘Adziim Bin
Merzuki3(TB18119) and Maleaya Jose4(FB18126).
Faculty of Engineering Technology In Electrical and Electronic, Universiti Malaysia Pahang

Dr. Hadijah Ahmad

Centre for Human Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Pahang

ABSTRACT developed the I4F technology and validated it with our

Instant foam technology can use any traditional foam prototype to tackle forest fire by using foam. TFEX has
solution in a special tank installed on board and this broad range of firefighting products and also own the
liquid emitted in the required place by pressure. Whit Instant Foam technology.
this process the quality of the created foam become very Water is the most commonly used extinguishing
homogeneous and some feature also can be modified material, but when it comes to forest fires there are many
during the process. Results and discussion: No doubt, in problems with it. Water has limited cooling capacity and
the market there are already some special water tanks, a lot of water goes to waste during refilling the buckets
even with pressured systems, however the results and also during the transportation from the water
comparing the extended efficiency of the instant foam resource to the fire front. Dropping water also causes
technology to the others is notable. Instant Foam for problems: pilots can miss the target, distribution on
Fighting Forest Fire (I4F) technology creates surface is not homogeneous, and much of it is below or
homogeneous foam, ensures long lasting and it reduces above the effectively threshold where the water is
the waste compared to traditional foam. The main useless. There are some technical initiatives to raise the
novelty of our solution, which is built upon Instant Foam efficiency of the use of pure water for forest fires.
technology is that we can use our foam based Airplanes and some helicopters use inside tanks to
extinguishing material for aerial application and ensure reduce the waste of refilling and transportation. Short
fast refilling. and long term retardants are also used. The long term
In this article we would like to present the economic retardants are extremely expensive but undoubtedly
advantages of the I4F technology we have developed efficient. Foam as short term retardant also increase the
and the steps to be taken with the corresponding costs in efficiency of the water that is much cheaper than
order to become a market leading commercial product. retardants but its efficiency and duration is usually
The main objective is to develop and Instant Foam for below the long term retardant.
Fighting Forest Fire (I4F) technology as way to control
fires forest. The method to achieve the objective is based 1.PROBLEM STATEMENT
on TRIZ and tools involved are Cause and Effect Chain
1.1. Problem 1
(CEC) Analysis, Engineering Contradiction, and 40
Although the bushfire has been extinguished, there is a
Inventive Principles. The result of the idea will be
analysis. problem that we can address that can be actually reduce
the amount of time taken to extinguish the fire and stop
1. INTRODUCTION it from spreading vigorously. The problem is the
One effect of global climate change is the increased
risk of forest and vegetation fire and the higher intensity waterbombers/airtankers that is used during the disaster.
of these fires, thus the resulting damage is more severe. The bushfire was spreading for about 250 days and this
The application of aircraft and helicopters in large-scale result in a massive lost.
forest fires is a globally widespread practice. They can
transport great amount of extinguishers, mainly water to 2. METHODOLOGY
places which road vehicles cannot reach. However, even 2.1. TRIZ is acronym from the Russian words which is,
this amount is often not enough. The author aims to
“Teoriya Izobreatatelskikh Zadatch. In translated
present a potential new method of increasing the
effectiveness of extinguishers. The adaptation of this into English it is mean close to the Theory of
technology in forest fire fighting has raised interest. Inventive Problem Solving (TIPS). According to
Thus, the author wishes to introduce and develop this TRIZ, the universal principles of creativity form
technology as an innovation in the market of forest and the idea of innovative process or improvement
aerial firefighting with the consent of the owner of the product. In other words, whatever problem you are
patent. The article describes the author’s related facing after this or now, you are having already can
research, result and the adaptation of the technology. R-
solved it. The purpose of TRIZ system is to help
Fire is a company founded by firefighters and pilots who
have used their corresponding experience to create a we or people tackle any technical problem and
novel solution to fight forest fires. They have joined challenge, especially when we faced difficult
forces with TFEX Engineering Ltd and together situations. Next, TRIZ usually applies in product
 development, design engineering, and process
management to generate alternative solutions
which would be easier to learn and immediately
solve problems.
2.2. CEC Analysis

Figure 3 Super System Analysis

The Figure 3 shows about the Super System Analysis

which are involves the weight of water, safety, floor in
aircraft, and size of airtankers. The details of this part
will explain in Invention part.
Figure 1 CEC Analysis on Waterbombers

Based on the CEC Analysis in Figure 1, water is the 2.4. Interaction Analysis
most typically used material for extinguish forest fire,
however it is cooling capacity is limited, distribution is
uneven, and the pilots will miss the exactly target. This
method used is also dangerous for the aircraft and air
crew in cabin due to severe air turbulence above on the
fire. The, there is a problem that we can address that can
be actually reduce the amount of time taken to
extinguish fire retardant and to stop the fire from
spreading vigorously. The problem is the Waterbombers
or Airtankers that used during the disaster. The bushfire
was spreading for about 250 days and this result in a
massive lost.
Figure 4 Interaction Analysis of I4F Technology.
2.3. Component Analysis
The Figure 4 shows the interaction analysis of I4f
Technology. I4F Technology is mean (Instant foam for
fighting forest fire) project developed technology for
created a long lasting homogenous foam that is greater at
putting out fires than current approaches. Project
organizer and Managing Director of SME TFEX
Engineering, (EU-funded Horizon 2020) Dr Istvan Szocs
says: “Our I4F system is more practical than ancient
water or foam methods and much cheaper than state of
the art solutions, like a use of retardants”. In this
interaction analysis, it indicates the I4F Technology
most effective because is more ecologically clean than
current long-term retardant that are mixed water because
it requires a much smaller number of foaming agents to
The Figure 2 show the Aircraft bring Waterbombers to achieve better effect.
extinguish fire forest. The main part in the figure have 4
components and function which are:
1. Turbine engine to provide thrust for the plane.
2. Waterombers or Airtankers retardant to extinguish the
fire forest.
3. The body of plane to hold all components.
4. Water tank to hold the water/fire retardant.
2.5. Function Model retardant uses 20-25 % mixture of water. This can put
the usage of water and the foam itself can last longer.

2.6. Engineering Contradiction

Figure 5 Function Model.

Table 1 Engineering Contradiction.

Figure 6 Footprint of I4F Figure 7 Foam – 3 x

more weight on
surface.

The problem for the Waterbombers can’t put out fire in a Table 2 Engineering Contradiction.
faster manner are because of the tank for the water is not
big enough to hold the larger amount of the water or fire
retardant. This causes the area of the water drop to
extinguish the fire is small and the plane take time to
refill the water into the tank for each trip it does. The
solution for it is to make the tank larger but in doing so
the weight of the plane and the size of the plane are
affected. Other than that, this is also have some effect on
the turbine engine as more energy needed to fly a bigger
Aircraft in the sky while carrying high volume of water.
The other problem is because the water that
most Waterbombers use mostly evaporate before it hit its
target. Using a fire retardant or water is affective only to
a certain degree. This is because the water has low
cooling temperature. The solution is to mix the water
with other compound that is safe for the environment Table 3 Engineering Contradiction.
while increasing the cooling effect so that the mixture
can put out the fire faster and the plane can make less
round trip. This solution only effects the water and for us
it is a simple and fast solution that need to be
implemented on any Waterbombers although the cost to
manufacture it might be expensive. I4F (Instant Foam)
uses less ratio of water which is only 3% while most fire
3. FINDINGS agent that collides with air to generates foam but it is not
This is the innovation to overcome the problem that has a homogenous foam. Using instant foam, the final result
been mentioned earlier which extinguishing bushfire is more homogenous thus creating more effective
using instant foam instead of water. From principle 35, distribution than traditional foam. The effective portion
parameter change, we have changed the way we of the instant foam is higher than traditional foam.
extinguish bushfire by using instant foam instead of
water and fire redundant. The way we do this is
replacing the water or fire redundant that most
waterbombers transport in their tank with the foam. This
also can use any traditional foam solution in special tank
installed on board and this liquid emitted in the required
place by pressure (Restas, 2014, p. 1416). Thus, the
foam that is created from the mixture will be more
homogenous and can be easily modified depend on the
situation.
The use of instant foam is very effective in fighting
against fire because of it can cover more surface are than
water (Restas, 2018, p. 9).
Figure 8.4 Percentage of distribution based on the
effectiveness of foam expansion’s rate.

Figure 8,0 Water coverage on leaf

Figure 8.1 Detail view on water coverage on leaf

By having more coverage on surface area, the weight
Figure 8.5 Expansion of foam on leaf.
that the solution remained on the surface area will be
higher thus the cooling effect will be much better to
This instant foam also can save the life of firefighters
extinguish any fire.
because rather than direct attack to fight fire with water
that can have severe turbulence during flight, firefighters
can drop the foam in indirect method because the
expansion of the foam is very wide compare to water or
fire retardant.

Figure 8.2 Foam coverage on leaf

Figure 8.3 Graph comparison between I4F, water and

other foam Figure 8.6 Comparison between direct attack and
The test results for Instant Foam for Fighting Forest Fire indirect attack.
(I4F) is 6 times more effective than using water to fight
intensive fire. Traditional foam uses water and foam
 Figure 8.7 Footprint of I4F.
From Figure 8.7, we can see that the I4F solution have
more spread will maintaining an even distribution. The
installation that need to be done into the waterbombers is
the foam fatal tank that have the I4F solution that will
pump it into water to have the mixture. I4F also can
reduce the amount of water to be use for mixture with
water. The ratio of water is only about 3% to the ratio of
I4F so that way the load of the water tank can be reduce
thus the size can also be smaller. This also can make the
duration of the waterbombers on air be extended as it
doesn’t need to refill its water regularly thus saving time.

Figure 4.8 Foam fatal tank that installed on a helicopter.

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