Town Receives Device

Designed To Control Structure Fires

By Andrew Gorosko

The town now owns a specialized fire extinguisher designed to quickly control a structure fire’s spread, providing firefighters with precious time to move into the building and extinguish the blaze.

On Tuesday, Fire Marshal Bill Halstead received from the Newtown Lions Club a FIT-5 (fire interruption technology) device that he is carrying in his staff car when responding to fire calls.

On arriving at the scene of a structure fire, a firefighter would trigger the device and then toss it into the structure near the fire. The bright red canister then emits a dense cloud of aerosolized powder that quickly knocks down the spread of the fire and greatly lowers the temperature in the burning structure. The device can be used only once. It costs about $1,300.

Mr Halstead said this week that the device likely would be most effective when it is placed inside a burning structure where a single room and its contents are ablaze, rather than a house which is fully engulfed in flames.

The FIT-5 will effectively knock down a fire that is burning within a 1,700-cubic-foot room and will slow the spread of fires that are occurring in much larger rooms, according to its manufacturer, ARA Safety.

Mr Halstead said the FIT-5 device might have proved to be an effective firefighting tool in the fire last Christmas night that destroyed the Russo residence at 57 Osborn Hill Road in Sandy Hook.

The FIT-5 is known as a “powder aerosol generator.” The ten-pound unit is intended to knock down a fire before firefighters enter a burning building.

The device is designed to make entry of the building safer for firefighters and make it simpler to rescue any people who are trapped inside the burning building.

Lions Club members said they consider donating a FIT-5 device to the town to be a valuable aspect of the group’s public service program.