Straight Bore Nozzle on 75ft Quint

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Permalink Reply by Larry Lasich on September 3, 2011 at 5:21pm

Stack tips deliver more water to the target, with less nozzle reaction than fog nozzles.

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Permalink Reply by David H. Moore on September 3, 2011 at 8:21pm

Agreed! However, we have named ours" The Plasma Cutter" because it will literally cut a house in half. we have left ruts in the yard from overshooting. With the Fog it easy to protect exposures. We are a mostly residential community and I just dont see much advantage in residential.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault (ret) on September 5, 2011 at 11:25am

-The advantage touted by users of the fog is always exposure protection. In fact, the best use of water delivery is in fact, to knock the fire down. exposure protection is general speaking, not effective use of the water and the tactic general doesn't work well.

-The absolute advantage of the straight tip nozzle on a master stream is that massive amounts of water are delivered; which is in fact the goal of master stream operations. Straight tips deliver much more water than a fog nozzle, can deliver the water further and with less pressure required from the pump supplying the elevated master stream. Run the numbers yourself. If you're doing the math properly there will be an absolutely huge difference in solid vs fog with the solid bore nozzle being the clearly better choice.

-Keep in mind that the the goal of a master stream is to deliver the largest amounts of water possible. 

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Permalink Reply by Larry Lasich on September 5, 2011 at 12:40pm

Thank you Brick.  I'm only answering this question once per customer.

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Permalink Reply by karl Findling on September 8, 2011 at 12:13pm

The above is right on! Smooth Bore nozzles are less effected by wind and deliver the goods. There are just a few instances where the combination fog nozzle may be desired--Rail car incidents, better cooling affect with fog IF no wind and within reach of an effective application.

Remember to remove stacked-tips ahead of water application and choose tip-size based on the maximum water that can be delivered!  I've seen too small of tips left on because folks get in a big hurry--I tend to choose one-size larger than I think we can supply and it seems to be a good way to go.

In the suburban setting I prefer the combination fog on our ground-based monitors for two reasons--The first is the winds at ground-level is easily delt with normally, and the combination is very effective at "going back-and-forth" between fog for cooling an exposure briefly, ember control, and when the seat just can't be reached well, whether a ground-based position or elevated position or not.

I tend to gravitate 75% of the time to smooth bore nozzles for "everything!'

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Permalink Reply by Shareef Abdu Nur on September 11, 2011 at 12:09am

Bricault is absolutely correct! I would also like to humbly add that at 75 ft in the air with a fog tip one would lose alot of the stream to wind and by the time the water actually hit the fire it would probably be more steam than water anyways.  We are also in the plans to switch our tip from a fog to a smoothbore for penitration, higher gpm and less psi, and reach.  I am a firm believer that the best way to protect an exposure is by putting out the original fire. 

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Permalink Reply by Larry Lasich on September 11, 2011 at 8:25am

Plus; if you can afford to waste a tower on exposure protection, IMHO, you have too many towers.

Shareef Abdu Nur said:

Bricault is absolutely correct! I would also like to humbly add that at 75 ft in the air with a fog tip one would lose alot of the stream to wind and by the time the water actually hit the fire it would probably be more steam than water anyways.  We are also in the plans to switch our tip from a fog to a smoothbore for penitration, higher gpm and less psi, and reach.  I am a firm believer that the best way to protect an exposure is by putting out the original fire. 

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Permalink Reply by Todd "Walt" Walton on September 11, 2011 at 12:51pm

One of the benefits I see of a solid bore over a combination nozzle on an elevated master stream is that when you are dealing with a large fire there should be less water evaporating and actually getting to the seat of the fire.  This is based upon the combination nozzle shaping the drops into a straight stream and the small drops converting to steam before reaching the base of the fire.  The solid bore would provide more mass vs. the droplets and be more resistant to steam conversion and therefor apply the water to the base of the fire.

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