Fire Shooter is made mainly from edible thickeners. It is safe for animals to lick or eat it. If an animal gets caught up in a fire, we expect that they will be able to dampen their fur in the Fire Shooter puddle and that it may help to protect them from the fire so that they can run far away. Fire Shooter water which has been sprayed in a forest gradually evaporates or is absorbed into the ground. The dried residue breaks down within 2 weeks and is turned into soil, thus contributing to the regeneration of the burned forest.

Fire Shooter is packed so as to fit a 15 L water bag. First, dissolve it in water in a different water tank and then insert it into the water bag. It has been designed to easily dissolve in a current; however, if you stir the water as you add the Fire Shooter in, it will be evenly dispersed, and you can easily thicken the water immediately. Instead of putting water in a backpack-type fire extinguishing water bag, you can put in the Fire Shooter water and use that instead in the same way as conventional water.
Please refer to the fire extinguishing experiment video.

Portable pumps for use in firefighting can be applied to air-cooled engine pumps. They can also be used for water-cooled pumps wherein the water for fire extinguishing is not used to cool down the engine. Use the appropriate amount of Fire Shooter measured out for 1 ton of water. In past experiments, the Fire Shooter water did not disperse and was able to be concentrated on one place when sprayed, as compared to regular water. It was confirmed that the flight distance of the water increased by approximately 20%. FIRE SHOOTER forms a gel puddle where it is sprayed to collect and stay there for longer than water would, thus preventing the spread of fires.

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In recent years, many large-scale forest fires have been breaking out. The forest fire which broke out in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island in August 2015 continued to burn until November, and the damage caused by the spread of the smoke extended so far that residents considered evacuating the entire island. Many native plants burned, and the fire even approached the habitant of the orangutans. In the September 2020 wildfire in Napa Valley, California in the US, around 30 wineries were swallowed up by fire. Many luxury residential areas are scattered about at various points on the West coast of the US, and huge losses have been reported due to wildfires breaking out. In Australia, a bushfire which continued to burn for half a year until February 2020 took the lives of many animals and burned an area equivalent to half of the area of Japan, burning away their habitants. Although forest fires occur every year, there is not much technical innovation in this area and the resulting damage from these is increasing year by year.

Immediately Gelling and Delivering Water for Firefighting to the Point of Fire

Large-scale forest fires are generally extinguished using water sprinkled from an aircraft; however, at high flight altitudes, the water disperses and disappears in the air. Likewise, fire extinguishing activities at low altitudes are also dangerous as the smoke collects, thus impairing visibility. Therefore, we developed the ‘Drop Control System’, a fire extinguishing system in which water for fire extinguishing is delivered from a safe high altitude and reaches the target point without dispersing. The system is comprised of the following 3 items.
1. Technology which delivers water to the ground without it dispersing
2. Technology which reliably drops water for fire extinguishing to the desired point.
3. Technology which sprays water all at once without missing the timing for the drop

In air-based fire extinguishing via helicopter, water is put into a fire extinguishing bucket which is suspended in the air, brought to the point of the fire, and sprayed from the sky. However, water disperses at high altitudes and does not reach the point of the fire. Therefore, Iluka College conceived of a plan wherein the water for fire extinguishing would be supplied in a gel pack and dropped in a solid state. This gel back can be stored in a dry state, and 1 g of the edible gelling agent absorbs approximately 100 g of water, gelling inside the back so that a gel pack-type fire extinguishing agent is created. The gel pack supplies water in 5 minutes in the aircraft and can deliver almost all of the water necessary to the site of the fire even from high altitudes. The gel pack bursts at the site of the drop, covering the combustible and allowing it to cool.

①The gelling agent is an edible polysaccharide thickener which is safe for animals to eat
②The pack is a soft, small lump which is safe even if it hits a person
③The pack materials biodegrade every few months, meaning that they are safe for Earth’s environment
④Work is easy and safe as the gel pack arbitrarily absorbs a large amount of water
⑤As it is a solid , it will not disperse even if dropped from a high altitude in a safe area
⑥As it is a solid, it is possible to calculate the drop point without missing it
⑦A gel puddle can be created at the drop point so as to prevent the spread of the fire

Reliably delivering gelled fire extinguisher to the point of fire

Packs were dropped at varying altitudes with the helicopter in a hovering state (stationary in the air).
Gel packs were dropped twice from 100 ft, 200 ft, and 300 ft above the ground, and the area of the point of arrival was then measured. The gel pack reliably reached the target even at high altitudes and covered the ground with gel. In comparison, regular water was sprayed from an altitude of 200 ft, however; the water scattered and no trace of water remained on the ground.
Each target was made in the shape of a circle with a 10 m diameter.
The spraying field where 3,000 gel packs were dropped in 500 liters of water was as follows.

Field of dispersion when dropped from 100 ft was approximately 50㎡

Field of dispersion when dropped from 200 ft was approximately 100㎡

Field of dispersion when dropped from 300 ft was approximately 150㎡

Dropping gel packs while moving

With the cooperation of the Nagano Prefecture Fire and Disaster Prevention Air Corps, we dropped the gel packs while moving and measured the scope and position of the drop.

4,000 gel packs and 600 liters of water were placed into a drop bucket, and the entire amount was dropped at the target point according to the instructions of the control system while moving at an altitude of 100 feet above ground level and a ground speed of 25 knots. The puck was dropped exactly at the target point, and a fire spread prevention zone was created within a range of 25 m in length. Water was dropped under the same conditions; however, it immediately scattered in the sky and did not leave any trace when it arrived on the ground. By increasing the amount of large fire extinguishing buckets and gel packs dropped according to the scale of the fire, the density of the fire spread prevention zone could be increased. Users could also increase the length by increasing the ground speed.

By allowing the limited amount of water for fire extinguishing which can be carried by an aircraft to reach the ground within a certain range, it is possible to reliably contribute to extinguishing the fire. Water for fire extinguishing which has been absorbed once by the gel pack is not immediately absorbed into the ground and stays in the same spot, meaning that it is possible to create a fire spread prevention zone by connecting and dropping this water. A single dropped gel pack is only a single point for a large forest fire, but if the points are continuous, then these form lines and can enclose the fire. This system was adopted and developed by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency's Fire and Disaster Management Science and Technology Promotion System over four years from 2013 with Tottori University as the research representative.
Please contact us for details on past experiment results.