Chapter 17

Availability of Rescue and Fire Fighting Information

17.1 GENERAL

17.1.1 In accordance with ECAR 14, 2.11 there is a need for the airport authority to make available to the appropriate units information concerning the level of protection normally provided at the airport for aircraft rescue and fire fighting purposes. Significant changes in the level of protection should also be reported.

17.1.2 The level of protection normally available at an airport should be expressed in terms of the category of the rescue and fire fighting services as described in Table 2-2, in accordance with the types and amounts of extinguishing agents normally available at the airport.

17.1.3 Significant changes in the level of protection normally available at the airport for rescue and fire fighting should be notified to the appropriate air traffic services units and aeronautical information units to enable those units to provide the necessary information to arriving and departing aircraft. When such a change has been corrected, the above units should be advised accordingly. A significant change in the level of protection is considered to be a change in the category of the rescue and fire fighting service from the category normally available at the airport, resulting from a change in availability of extinguishing agents, equipment to deliver the agents, personnel to operate the equipment, etc. A significant change should be expressed in terms of the new category of the rescue and fire fighting service available at the airport.

17.1.4 When comparing the extinguishing agents available at an airport with Table 2-2, the following should be taken into account:

(a) the amount of foam concentrate available should be in proportion to the amount of water available for foam production and the foam concentrate selected;

(b) when both a foam meeting the minimum performance level A and a foam meeting the minimum performance level B are provided as principal agents the airport category should be determined from Table 2-2 after the amount of water available for the production of the foam meeting the minimum performance level B has been multiplied by 1.5 and added to that available for production of the foam meeting the minimum performance level A; and

(c) when water for foam production has been replaced partially or totally by complementary agents, it may be assumed that the complementary agents have replaced an amount of water based on the following equivalents:

1 kg dry chemical = 1.0 L water for production of a foam meeting

powder or halon performance level A

1 kg dry chemical =0.66 L water for production of a foam meeting

powder or halon performance level B