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Article : Sharpshooter Hawkes Fire delivers the final shot with Fire Hawk monitors

15,000lpm trailer pumps ready for shipment

Date: Thursday 22nd September, 2011

Until relatively recently the concept of ultra high flowrate monitors and pumpsets tended to be the preserveof the guys with Texan drawls and hats big enough tocover the modesty of a country the size of Wales.We’ve all learnt a lot from them and as with all great gurus there are followers. Hawkes Fire makes noapology for standing on the shoulders of giants to develop and improve on what went before. If 30,000lpm monitors supplied by two independent 15,000lpmtrailer-mounted pumpsets float your boat, then read on.

A large Irish oil refinery has recently ordered two trailer-mounted Fire Hawk monitors along with a hoselaying unit complete with 1km of5in (125mm) Angus Hi-Vol hose manufactured to the same high standard as Angus Duralinelay flat hose. Featuring a specially formulated high grade synthetic rubber extruded through asynthetic woven jacket, it offers the same highresistance to abrasion, heat, chemicals and oilduring operational use, and to UV, Ozone and weathering during storage. There is an additional capability to add a further 2km in the future.

Using larger bore hose and Stortz couplings provides key benefits such as reduced pressure drop over standard 64/70mm lay flat hose coupled with a reduction in the ‘spaghetti effect’ as emergency responders attempt to deliver the water capacity needed to fight large tank fireswhen using many more standard hoses.

Hawkes Fire has a fully equipped fabrication and maintenance workshop on its Wilton International site, at the heart of Europe’s largest chemical complex on Teesside. Marty andAndy Hawkes, along with their father Joe, are all trained industrial firefighters and understand the challenges of major flammable liquid fires,having attended the Buncefield incident, in 2005,for 16 weeks.

This experience combined with the engineering expertise inherent in the business saw Fire Hawk monitors chosen by competitive bid to identify best value. It’s gratifying to see that a wholly UK company can compete in this highly specialised arena.

Rare investment

Hawkes is a distributor for Angus Fire and theFrench Sides fire truck manufacturer, one of the largest fire truck manufacturers in Europe andfully supported in the UK by a service package in the field of mobile qualified engineers.Planned maintenance and emergency call-out are all in a day’s work, which gave reassurance to the monitor and pump end user that a whole of life service package was realistic. Investment of this type is all too rare and is comparable to a major fixed system project where perhaps a 20-year service life is the expectation.

Ongoing support for emergency deliveries offoam is provided by the Hawkes and Angus Fire teams in the UK – one phone call to the hotline triggers a complete response package, from additional foam concentrate to expert manpower.

Trailer pumps

The Fire Hawk foam/water monitor traileris equipped with 5in Stortz inlets feeding a manifold and 8in waterway supplying the tillerbar controlled monitor. At 10bar a throw of over 100m is achieved on jet with easy control back to wide-angle spray giving massive cooling capability. Every firefighter knows that,to paraphrase ex US President Bill Clinton,it’s about the footprint, stupid. Getting foam onto the top of the tank is the challenge with the large storage tanks in use today.Of greater importance is maintaining a safezone for firefighters in the event of boil-overs,vent fires, tank roof ruptures and even the prospect of tanks themselves being blown from their positions. The combination of efficien tmonitor hydraulics coupled with the application of advanced unaspirated film forming foam senables this safety margin while ensuring tha tthe correct application rate of foam hits the intended target.

Water infrastructure is vital

However, it’s not just about the monitors Adequacy and mobility of site water supplies are all vital links in the chain and the site has given careful consideration to this. The high pressure and high volume Patterson pumps are driven by 800hp (588kW) water-cooled V12 diesel engines mounted on a road legal chassis capable of being towed by an industrial tractor or a draw bar prime mover. An additional hose trailer completes the convoy, allowing the easy laying out of the 5in (125mm) Hi-Vol hose.

Hawkes Fire delivered this solution to our Irish customers by the close of 2010. If you are considering both mobile and fixed options as the solution to a major hazard you may wish to look to the UK for the answers

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