This Science Week, CFA is profile some of its researchers, scientists and engineers.
Joel Read is an engineer at CFA and is part of the team that designed our Crew Protection System fitted to our fire trucks.
“If there was ever an unfortunate event where our firefighters can’t escape an oncoming fire, then we have a number of protective systems so the firefighters can take refuge within their vehicle,” he said.
One of the systems is a water deluge system tested and developed with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
“From our collaboration with CSIRO it was identified that the water deluge system has to be operational for five minutes if the vehicle was ever engulfed in a burn-over situation so the engineering challenge was that we had enough water for firefighting but enough water in reserve from the vehicle to feed this water deluge system,” Joel said.
Watch the video to learn more about how the water deluge system works and what went into developing it.