Dry Chemical Limitations 

Dry Chemical limitations

In February 1951 we received our first 300 lb wheeled dry chemical units at RCAF Station Edmonton. Flight Sergeant Art "Bull" MacFadyen, the CFFM at NWAC HQ, who was in on the original tests of dry chemical while at AFHQ arranged for a course on dry chemical for the NWAC Fire Chiefs. He explained the attributes of dry chemical to them and then laid on a practical exercise. To show its various abilities and limitations he laid out a fire pit and acquired an old shed. He set fire to the shed and made an initial attack with the dry chemical followed up by a mop up with low velocity fog. Flight Sergeant Rocky Cameron had read a bit about dry chemical, just enough to be dangerous! He claimed it was capable of extinguishing all 3 classes of fire (only 3 classes were recognized at that time). He offered to demonstrate its capabilities on this A class fire. The shed was an old oil drum storage shed and was well soaked in oil. The "Bull" smiled and ignited the inside of the shed and invited Rocky to illustrate his point. When the fire was well underway, Rocky took a dry chemical nozzle and, opening the nozzle, charged in through the door. All went well until he shut off the nozzle. The resulting flash back blew him out through the door to his utter embarrassment. Fortunately only his ego was hurt as he picked himself up from the snow. The enclosed pictures show the incident, but are not too clear due to the smoke but we were all convinced that standard dry chemical would not work alone on an A class fire particularly when it involved oil soaked floor boards.

Donated By Major Phil Brown,  Retired