Pro/Pak portable firefighting foam system – a short review

We were given a demo of the Pro/Pak portable foam generator by the sales rep, who came by our firehouse a couple of weeks ago. There is a serious intent on purchasing one of these, as it would help us off-load the pumper by 400 liters of foaming agent that we carry on top of the 2600 liters of water. One of these portable packs can deliver up to 10.000 liters of foamed mix for every 10 liters of agent! In reality, you would use medium expansion at 0.3% to 0.6%, which still provides a few thousand liters of foam. The unit is a bit heavy on the shoulder, but adequate for moderate work, such as car or garbage fires, or K type fires that are not involving other parts of the compartment or structure.

As you can see in the videos and photos, the unit is a self-contained shoulder-carried case, with three snap-on nozzles for different attack modes. One provides high-pressure, low-volume foam for long reach, the second provides also low-volume but higher concentration of foam in the stream, and the largest nozzle gives a good flow of medium-expansion, higher volume foam. The flow is controlled by the twist handle, and there is a selector for the percentage of foam mix. Using special foam agents, you can go from 0.1% to 0.6%, while standard foam requires a change in the selector by unscrewing it and screwing it back on turned 180 degrees, so that the mix ratios are 1% to 6%.

Here is a video of the unit in action:

And a picture of the demo – click on it to visit the Flickr photo stream:

I would really recommend you consider adding this to your arsenal for quick interventions, which do not require large volumes of foam projected at a distance. It’s excellent for quickly delivering a sizeable amount of foam with limited manpower and/or water supply.