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Black Hills Fox News - KEVN - April 2, 2008 New Gel Found to be Effective in Wildfires Original Article Firefighting techniques are getting better all the time. New technology is being developed that will revolutionize firefighting science in the years ahead. And some of that technology is being developed right here in the Black Hills. You may not quite believe what you are about to see. I couldn't quite believe it. The stuff being sprayed on this building is fire retardant gel. It has the amazing ability to stop fire, or to protect things that need protecting from fire. Now that the gel has been applied to this small shed, it will be blasted with flames from a blow torch. When the gel is washed off -- no damage. Here's another demonstration of fire-gel's effectiveness. That finger should be burned to a crisp, but it's not. The man taking the chances here says he can just barely feel the heat. Gel has been found to be very effective in wildfires. Jody Sperlich says, "You wouldn't use this to actually put out the wildfire, because it is somewhat costly. You're gonna use it to protect the structures from the fire." Gel isn't new. It's been around a few years. What's new is the application technique and this new equipment developed by a Rapid City company called Dakota Fire. Jody Sperlich says, "Well the systems that have been out there previously have been very bulky, cumbersome, difficult to use. This allows it to be standard equipment on the firefighting engines that are out there." It takes some fairly complicated equipment to apply the gel properly. The amount of water in the gel needs to be varied depending on the humidity and the temperature of the air. The Rapid City company is trying to convince fire departments in Pennington County to purchase their new gel application system for fire trucks. The company put on the gel demonstrations today for Pennington County officials and for firefighters. Will they buy the equipment? They're thinking about it. One Pennington County Commissioner said he was very impressed with what he saw. |
