 It's
siren screaming, a big red crash truck sped across one corner of the airfield
towards the licking red gasoline flames and their tower of black smoke Men of
the Royal Canadian Air Force's Firefighting School at Aylmer, Ontario were going
into action. The flaming gasoline represented a crashed and burning aircraft, in
which trapped fliers would quickly die unless rescued.Almost before the truck had stopped it's crew began laying a blanket of fine dust over the flames. And in nearly as little time as it takes to read this, canvas clad firemen were charging up a path they had cut in the flames to the door of the hypothetical aircraft. Two pilots watched this from the doorway of a hangar. "I'll take soda with mine" one muttered. It sounded flippant, but his face showed he was deadly serious. He had just seen how soda could save his life, if he were trapped in the cockpit of a crashed aircraft, probably hurt, and enveloped in flaming gasoline. For the RCAF now uses soda to fight crash fires. Not the fizz kind of soda, but the same white powder as that on the kitchen shelf labeled "baking soda." The fire extinguishing sodium bicarbonate differs from the cooking ingredient only in that it is ground finer and contains chemicals which absorb moisture so it won't cake. 
The $45,000.00 truck, built to the Air Force specifications by the
Bickle-Seagrave fire engine company of Woodstock, Ontario, is the pride of the
RCAF fire department. It's the first of it's kind, the first large firefighting
unit to use Ansul dry chemical, the US trade name of the baking soda
extinguisher. The truck carries 4,000 pounds of soda and 3,200 cubic feet of
compressed nitrogen gas. Two gun type nozzles mounted on a platform atop the cab
enable the firemen to aim down at the heart of the flames. With nozzles on, twin
streams of baking soda and compressed nitrogen shoot out 50 feet.
The soda undergoes a chemical change, forming carbon dioxide when it hits the flames. The carbon dioxide blankets the fire, smothering it by depriving it of oxygen. The nitrogen helps too, being a heavy gas which doesn't burn. I saw the RCAF firemen stage a demonstration of what the truck can do. First, they spread 300 gallons of high octane aviation gas on the body of a wrecked aircraft and on the ground around it. A thrown match sent red flames and greasy black smoke billowing 100 feet into the air. Then WO2 Arthur McFadyen, of Calgary, put his truck and men into action. Two crewmen on the turret guns loosed blasts of baking soda and nitrogen at the wall of flames.Other firemen unreeled hoses from recesses in the sides of the truck and attacked the fire from the flanks. Within five seconds, actually timed, the flames had been beaten back from the nose of the plane. had there been anyone inside, rescue could have started immediately. And in 2 1/2 minutes the fire was completely out. PO Bert Quinn, the RCAF's fire marshal, was a fireman in Moose Jaw for 13 years before he joined the air force. "The main thing when an aircraft crashes on takeoff or landing - and that's when we have most of our crashes - is to get the survivors out," Quinn explained. "When we move in, we concentrate on beating the flames away from a door or a broken part of the fuselage, so we can get at the people inside. Extinguishing the fire is secondary, and we don't worry about that until we've got everybody out." In a gasoline or kerosene fire, water is worse than useless because it spreads the burning fuel. After study and experiment - which included tests under Artic conditions on Exercise Sweetbriar - the RCAF firemen chose baking soda over carbon dioxide gas, foam, water fog and other well known extinguishers as the most effective weapon against a fuel-fed fire raging around a crashed aircraft. Then followed design and development of the new truck. Now, 31 units of a smaller, 1000-pound capability type are being produced - enough to equip baking soda brigades at all main RCAF bases. The United States Air Force, United Airlines and the US Fire Underwriters Association sent their experts to Canada to see the crash truck in action. Even the US Navy dispatched a four-striper to study the Canadian's new technique, for on shipboard and at shore bases the presence of ammunition makes "Fire!" a dreaded cry. Among air personnel there's a tendency to dub Chief McFadyen's men "soda jerks." But fliers who have seen the soda boys in action mean nothing derogatory by it. Indeed it's becoming almost a term of endearment.
From The History Of The RCAF Firefighter
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