FIREFIGHTING UNIT

DISPOSITIF DE LUTTE CONTRE LE FEU

English Abstract

In its broadest aspect, the invention provides a firefighting unit (as defined
herein) characterised by the following
combination of features: The hose reel (15) is housed within a cabinet (11) to
which the operator must gain access in order to
operate the unit; A pump (22) for generating a pressurised water supply, and a
power unit (23) to drive the pump, are also housed
within the cabinet; The water-issuing nozzle region (19) of the hose is
adapted to be held and directed, in use, by the operator and
carries an operator-controlled water releasing and water cut-off mechanism
(16); The nozzle delivers the water in the form of a
fine mist or fog of water droplets.

French Abstract

La présente invention concerne, sous son aspect le plus large, un dispositif de lutte contre le feu, tel que décrit ici, qui est caractérisé en ce qu'il combine les éléments suivants: le dévidoir de tuyau (15) qui est logé dans une armoire à laquelle l'opérateur doit accéder de façon à faire fonctionner le dispositif; une pompe (22) servant à donner de la pression à l'eau ainsi qu'un moteur (23) servant à entraîner la pompe, qui sont également logés dans l'armoire; la partie de lance éjectant l'eau (19) du tuyau, qui est conçue pour être tenue et dirigée par l'opérateur l'utilisant, est pourvue d'un mécanisme d'ouverture et d'arrêt du débit d'eau (16); la lance fournit l'eau sous forme d'un fin brouillard ou d'un brouillard de gouttelettes d'eau.

Claims

6
Claims
1. A firefighting unit characterised by the following combination of features:
.cndot. The hose reel is housed within a cabinet to which the operator must
gain access in
order to operate the unit;
.cndot. A pump for generating a pressurised water supply, and a power unit to
drive the
pump, are also housed within the cabinet;
.cndot. The water-issuing nozzle region of the hose is adapted to be held and
directed, in
use, by the operator and carries an operator-controlled water releasing and
water
cut-off mechanism; and
.cndot. The nozzle delivers the water in the form of a fine mist or fog of
water droplets.
2. A wall-mounted firefighting unit substantially as described herein with
reference to
and as illustrated in any appropriate combination of the accompanying text
and/or
drawings.

Description

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FIREFIGHTING UNIT
Field of the Invention
The invention relates to firefighting units.
For the purposes of this specification a firefighting unit is defined as a
unit in which water
issues under pressure from a reel-mounted hose to be directed by an operator
towards the
source of the fire.
The invention is especially applicable with advantage to relatively compact
wall-mountable
units adapted to be fitted, in use, to an inside wall of an institutional
building such as a
prison or a school. But it is not limited to such uses and its scope is
defined in the
numbered claims which form part of this specification.
Review of Art Known to the Applicant
Firefighting units in the form of mobile self-propelled vehicular appliances
are well known.
The invention is not concerned with such appliances, but rather with the
common problem
of effectively fighting fires inside buildings.
Conventionally this problem is approached by mounting a succession of reeled
hoses on
the inside walls of the building, all fed from a common high pressure water
supply already

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2
plumbed into the building; and each designed, when unreeled, to direct towards
the source
of the fire a similarly conventional high-pressure jet of water in a
concentrated stream
relying on the hose operator to play in an arc in order to obtain any
reasonable degree of
coverage.
Such a conventional installation does not serve the needs of such
institutional buildings as
prisons, schools, canteens and the like. Here the requirement is often for a
wide coverage
of water so as effectively to blanket a confined area - a prison cell, for
example, or a school
classroom - within which a relatively localised fire has just started. In
prison cells, in
particular, there is a need for such coverage combined with the ability
rapidly to extinguish
the fire, without initially allowing the cell inmate to escape from the cell
(i.e. without first
being able to open the cell door before the fire is attacked) and to ensure
the fire is
attacked quickly enough and efficiently enough for the cell to be opened, and
the inmate
dragged out, before he has been overcome with smoke inhalation.
None of this is adequately provided for by conventional in-building-mounted
hose reel
installations.
Summary of the Invention
In its broadest aspect, the invention provides a firefighting unit
characterised by the
following combination of features:
= The hose reel is housed within a cabinet to which the operator must gain
access in
order to operate the unit;
= A pump for generating a pressurised water supply, and a power unit to drive
the
pump, are also housed within the cabinet;
= The water-issuing nozzle region of the hose is adapted to be held and
directed, in
use, by the operator and carries an operator-controlled water releasing and
water
cut-off mechanism; and
= The nozzle delivers the water in the form of a fine mist or fog of water
droplets.
Such a unit has advantages, especially in the exemplary case just outlined,
which will
become appreciated when the following description is read in conjunction with
the
accompanying drawings.

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Brief Description of the Drawings
Figure 1 shows in perspective a unit embodying the invention and with its door
opened;
and
Figure 2 drawn to an enlarged scale in comparison with Figure 1 shows one form
the
nozzle of the unit might take in practical embodiments.
Description of the Preferred Embodiment
The unit illustrated consists of a welded steel wall-mountable cabinet 11
incorporating an
openable and closable hinged lid 12. A latch 13 on the lid engages a lock 14
when the lid
is fully shut. Both latch and lock can be of conventional construction suited
to the specific
need of the unit in service. For example, a straightforward push lock may
suffice for
general usage in such institutional buildings as schools, care homes, etc
whereas in prison
usage the prison service will normally prefer to supply and fit individual
locks of their own
choosing.
The lid 12 of the cabinet illustrated takes the form of a free swinging door
hinged about a
vertical (in use) axis and openable, in this particular unit, through a
full1180 arc from its
fully shut position. A hose reel 15 is mounted on the inside of the door and,
once the hose
is unreeled, the reel can be pulled in any relative position and will follow
the door hinge
swinging arc under the control of an operator. The hose itself ends in a
trigger unit 16,
holstered within a clip 17 on the hose reel mounting bracket 18 which retains
the reel 15
inside the door 12. The extremity of the hose ends in a preformed angled
nozzle 19.
Figure 2 shows one practical form the nozzle head might take. Here there are
five water
outlets, one in the centre of the head, four more spaced at the same radial
distance from
the central nozzle outlet and each equally circumferentially spaced about the
head. These
nozzle outlets are so constructed as to cause the water, when the unit is in
operation, to
issue from them simultaneously in the form of a fine mist or fog of water
droplets.
Thus, whilst the hose nozzle 19 will have its water supplied to it at
relatively high pressure,
the emergent fine mist or fog will not strike a relatively narrow area at
similarly high

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4
pressure but will be a correspondingly reduced-pressure issuance. And the use
of (in this
embodiment) five spaced nozzle outlets, the outer four of which are each
angled away
from the otherwise flat plane of the nozzle head end, causes the mist or fog
to emerge in a
generally conical wide-area blanket rather than as a single concentrated jet.
A so-called "doughnut" 21 is built into the hose end forward of the trigger
region 16 as
shown in Figure 1. This doughnut is a generally toroidal rubber or plastics
component. It is
so spaced from the trigger unit 16 that, as shown in Figure 1, when the hose
end unit is
holstered in the clip 17, the doughnut 21 abuts one edge of the hose reel
mounting
bracket 18.
The purpose of this doughnut 21 will be explained shortly.
A pump 22 for generating the pressurised water supply to the hose, and a power
unit in
the form of an electric motor 23 to drive the pump 22, are also housed within
the cabinet
11 and when the door 12 is shut and locked, neither the pump nor the motor
(nor of
course the hose reel 15) can be accessed by a would-be operator or by anyone
else. Pump
22 and motor 23 can be selected from suitable alternatives by the intended
skilled
addressee of this specification and the necessary power supply to them can
also be
appropriately determined once the site of installation is known and appraised.
The water
supply inlet 24 which in this embodiment protrudes from the top of the cabinet
11 may
dictate the position of the cabinet adjacent a suitable internal water supply
existing within
the building.
The unit illustrated is particularly advantageously usable in prisons. The
cell door of an
individual prison cell incorporates what is known as an inundation point. This
is a through-
hole formed in the door and sealed off normally by a locking plug. In the
event of a fire
within the cell, a prison officer wilt rip the locking plug from its place,
thereby exposing the
inundation point without opening the door. With the firefighting unit mounted
adjacent
the cell door, the door 12 of the unit opened, and the hose end unholstered
from the reel,
the officer can thrust the nozzle end region 19 of the hose through the opened
inundation
point until the doughnut 21 jams against the edges of the inundation point
(which,
obviously, it is bigger than). This has two advantages. First, it seats the
door again,
simultaneously stopping any through-draft which could fan the fire within
whilst giving

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the issuing mist or fog of water droplets a similarly draft-free blanketing
effect within the
cell. Second, it prevents any attempt on the part of the cell inmate to pull
the hose end
through into the cell and thereby wrench it out of the control of the
operating officer.
The operator then uses the trigger 16 and its one-way valve actions to release
and/or cut
off the water supply issuing from the nozzle 19 until he judges he has sprayed
the cell
interior enough. He can then pull the hose end away from the cell door
inundation point,
open the door, enter the cell and either attend to the fire, pull out the cell
inmate, or both.
Throughout the operation of the hose, the misting blanket issues at fairly
high velocity but
not excessive pressure; the coverage, and the misting or fogging action, is
the key to its
effectiveness.
In the illustrated embodiment, the arrangement of major components within the
cabinet,
including the mounting and size of the hose reel 15, is designed to minimise
the depth D
of the cabinet. As stated above, the specification of the various components
can be
chosen to suit specific need by the skilled addressee, but by way of example
only, the unit
illustrated could comprise a single phase power supply feeding a single pump
and with a
maximum working pressure of approximately 100 bar, a flow of some 6.35 litres
per
minute designed operating parameter, a hose inlet size of nominally one half
of one inch
BSP, and with a motor size of 2.4 Kilowatt 230 volt 50 hertz, 3.2 horsepower
single phase
supply. The whole unit could weight literally as little as 9S kilograms if the
cabinet were to
have a nominal size of 700mm length, 300mm depth, and 700m height.
Whilst the unit illustrated is wall-mounted, units of the kind embodying the
invention
could be constructed as a hand-wheeled mobile unit although this is not
presently
preferred.
Spray nozzles of the kind suitable for use with a unit embodying the invention
are shown
in published UK patent application GB2436538 (Watermist Limited) although if
such
nozzles were to be applied to a unit of the kind now in question, their blow-
off caps would
not be used. The several previously published patent specifications cited
against
application GB2436538 show other forms of spray mist or fogging nozzles and
the ways in
which these might or might not be adapted for use with the present invention
will occur to
those reading this current text.

Representative Drawing