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Farmers, firefighters see effectiveness of soybean-based foam

Chemists at Crossplains Solutions developed a firefighting foam using soybean flour that was released to the market in March.  Firefighters and farmers from around the country visited a Wisconsin fire training facility to see how well the foam works. 

Craig Kruse with the Watertown, South Dakota Fire Department tells Brownfield his city has dealt with PFAS contamination, and they were quick to test the environmentally-safe soybean-based foam. “In the testing that we did head to head with each one, we were very impressed with the soy foam, and that’s waht brought us out here to see this in a bigger demonstration.”

Kruse says for Watertown, switching to soy foam made sense on many levels. “When the farmers do well, our city does well, so for us to find a product that bridges the gap of firefighting and helping the ag community is something that we’re very interested in.”

Farmer Justin Bauer is on the Wisconsin Soybean Marketing Board. He tells Brownfield, “A lot of firefighters in our local communities are farmers, and if we can get that forever chemical, at least one or more forever chemical out of something that they’re using, it feels really good to us because we know cancer is one of the leading (causes of) deaths for firefighters and if we can get one of those chemicals away from them, that would be great.”

Chemists at Cross Plains Solutions developed the soy-based firefighting foam using soybean flour with checkoff funding support from the Wisconsin Soybean Marketing Board and the United Soybean Board. The chemists are confident they can use the large amount of available soybean meal to make an adequate supply of firefighting foam at a competitive price.

Bauer and Kruse spoke to Brownfield during a fire foam demonstration at Chippewa Valley Technical College’s fire safety training center in Eau Claire, Wisconsin Friday.

Audio: Craig Kruse discusses his experience with soybean based firefighting foam with Brownfield’s Larry Lee

Audio: Farmer and Wisconsin Soybean Marketing Board member Justin Bauer discusses the importance of soybean based firefighting foam with Brownfield’s Larry Lee