Events Recognize the Need For Change
By S. Kriyu

Most of us use fire several times each day without giving it much thought.  It heats our homes, cooks our food, creates much of our electricity and powers most of our transportation.  Life without fire would be extremely difficult, and yet, since the beginning of history, uncontrolled fire has been consistently the one universal enemy of virtually every human being.

Today, despite modern technology and equipment, together with the best efforts of highly trained crews worldwide, forest and urban wild land fires account for losses and costs estimated to exceed 1% of the world gross product annually.  Fire, as we are constantly reminded, is one of the seven primary forces of nature.

The vast destruction is, in part, due to the fact that most wild land fire fighting is still done with hand crews using fire picks.  It's extremely hard work, dangerous, uncompromising and demanding.

In 1994, the wind shifted and 14 of America's best wild land firefighters died in a single incident at Glenwood Springs, Colorado.  When the smoke had cleared, the five (5) federal firefighting agencies combined to write a 60 page investigative "Final Report."  The principal finding of the June, 1995, report was succinct:

"No simple solution or novel approach exists.  The reader will find no dramatic changes in the form of new equipment or technology."

Since the advent of the first dedicated fire suppression apparatus (the round-bottomed bucket!), fire suppression technology hasn't seen many dramatic changes.  Indeed, the goal, it seems, has consistently been to deliver ever-larger volumes of water with increased speed and horsepower. But hauling large volumes of water has its drawbacks.  Because of the weight of the water, fire trucks operating off road are limited by terrain and range.  Water-hauling aircraft used for fire attack are only over the fire scene for a few seconds each hour and their operations are extremely limited by wind, smoke conditions and nightfall.  In heavy brush, where fire flame heights exceed 2.5 meters, tests have shown that much of the water turns to steam before it reaches the fire.

The problem of fighting wild land fire is all the more vexing in urban/wild land interface areas where hillsides are crowded with expensive homes.  When wildfires erupt, overtaxed fire crews are often spread too thin.  In times of fire emergency, structural firefighters have been dispatched to wild land fires for which they are inadequately trained.  And experienced fire fighting crews are often limited to directing traffic as whole neighborhoods are abandoned to fire.

Until now, a consistent problem was that no rough terrain vehicle existed that could safely fight fire at point blank range.  The Fire Attack Vehicle concept fills a technological void.  It finally gives the fire fighter a weapon to actually fight fire.  It's totally fire-proofed to operate within the fire environment, and, it doesn't use water to suppress the fire.  Instead, it employs a powerful slashing mechanism to create a safe path over the burning front line of a brush fire.  Burning brush is swept to the black side of the fire line.  High-pressure air assists in the highly dynamic process.  The fire break left in the FIRECAT's wake is wide and clean.

By integrating the latest technologies onto a proven severe duty, track-mounted platform, FAV, Inc. has designed and built a highly aggressive, night-capable, rough terrain, direct attack fire suppression apparatus that can snuff active fire lines without using water and without bulldozing the ground surface.

Equipped with climate-controlled and filtered-air cabin, infrared video, GPS/GIS global positioning, the FIRECAT can climb a 60 degree slope and destroy an advancing wildfire while clearing a swept-clean, 25-foot wide fire line.  The FIRECAT has the unique ability to trim burning branches off a tree without damage to the trunk, and since the cutter bar rotates with full wrist-like functions, the cutter path can be reduced to a narrow eight (8) feet.

The highly mobile FIRECAT destroys wild land fire without chemicals or water by direct (flank) attack on the advancing fire line.  Burning material is slashed and thrown back into the already burned area along a wide swath.  Simultaneously, high pressure (recycled post-combustion air from the vehicle's exhaust) blows heat and fine particles to the already-burned side of the fire line.  The combined attack interrupts the fire ignition sequence by destruction of the heat transfer process, abolishing the evolution of volatile gasses and reversing the self-sustaining pyrolysis necessary for the fire to propagate.  Plant root structures are left intact.

In the future, vast areas presently sacrificed to back fires will be saved by the FIRECAT, and its value will be measured by the wild life and property that it saves.