Published in May 2006 American Longwall Magazine

USF founder and president Alden Ozment said when word spread about Hellfighter’s success in Utah, many mine operators began to call the company whenever a fire broke out.

“For the past two years, the company had been called to virtually every coal mining fire in North America,” he said.

“We can mobilize a fleet of equipment and dispatch personnel to emergency or disaster sites anywhere in the world and our equipment can be on site within 12 to 24 hours.”

The company has successfully extinguished five mine fires (among them West Elk Mine, Colorado; Buchanan Mine, Virginia; Excel Mine, Kentucky and Skyline Mine, Utah) and provided crews and equipment at other recent mine-disaster sites, including the Aracoma Mine in West Virginia and at San Juan de Sabinas, Mexico.

USF said it had the only such system proven at National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) labs, and the only company to hold a pending patent on the technology.

Ozment, a former firefighter himself, said the Hellfighter system was born when he began researching the coal mining industry and found the need for a more effective system to extinguish deep seated fires.

“Coal mine fires have been a problem as long as they’ve been mining coal, historically, mine operators have used water to extinguish the coal but water could never reach the deep seated fires,” he said.

He said the use of foam was superior to water because it has three to 15 times the ability to penetrate the fuel load and a longer drain time, thereby allowing prolonged contact of the extinguishing agent with the fuel.

The system consists of four primary elements – the Hellfighter processing and dispensing device, a nitrogen generator, the foam concentrate and a foam proportioner, supported by various pieces of equipment like an AC power generator and water pump.

It uses an environmentally responsible Mine Fire Fighting Foam (MFFF) that is injected into the mine using a high-pressure nozzle and keeps the fire zone in a non-combustible state until the fire is completely extinguished.

The foam-and-nitrogen injection system produces a foam product expanded with nitrogen instead of air that eliminates the introduction of fresh air (including oxygen) to a coal mine fire, which would fan the fire.

The stainless-steel nozzle allows for proper mixing of the foam and nitrogen to provide the density and fluid-flow requirements and the nitrogen generator produces up to 90,000 cubic feet per hour of 99.9 % pure nitrogen.

The compressor produces 1250 standard cubic feet per minute at 350 pounds per square inch and an optional pressure booster is capable of increasing the foam-and-nitrogen output pressure to 1500 pounds per square inch.

Using the foam blanket expanded with nitrogen allows placement of a firefighting agent, which extinguishes the fire by both displacing oxygen and penetrating the fuel source.

The foam blanket has superior wetting properties and can have as much as a 2000-to-l expansion ratio, turning one gallon of foam solution into 2000 gallons of foam.

The MFFF has the consistency of shaving cream and its chemical composition provides a durable substance that adheres to the fuel source and resists heat.

The foam also allows for high-pressure applications to reach the small cracks and crevasses where many berms often reside.

The Hellfighter equipment is mounted on structural frames to allow handling with forklifts or overhead hoists and compact packaging lends itself to shipping by trailer, ship or aircraft.

The company said it had also been working to develop additional mine-safety technology.

It is expanding its popular Sentinel Fire Suppression System portable units, which also use the Hellfighter technology, and in addition to its 3-gallon, 30-gallon and 60-gallon units, a 120-gallon Sentinel unit will soon be available.

Ozment said the company’s range of firefighting products were suitable to use on combustibles, flammable liquids and biohazards and could be used in coal mines, commercial businesses and homes.

He said the Sentinel 60 and new Sentinel 120 units were for larger coal mine fires and were made to be either stationary or mobile.

Ozment said the coal mine fire situation around the world would not go away without a major effort to develop strategies and firefighting equipment to totally extinguish the fires, and USF was the market leader of such technology.

“With 150 abandoned coal mine fires in the United States today, and several hundred such fires worldwide, the future looks bright as USF Equipment and Services continues to be on the cutting edge of firefighting technology,” he said.

The company also manufactures firefighting foam, biological and chemical decontamination foam.

Ozment said the company’s main focus was on coal mine fires and mine fire technology, providing disaster-response services in addition to mine and oil refinery firefighting.