Breathing Air System Manufacturers Go Mobile For Flexibility
By Ed Ballam

Since the terrible events of 9/11, our collective consciousness has become keenly aware oft the real threat of terrorism. Firefighters and emergency personnel need self-contained breathing apparatus to work in areas that could be contaminated with all sorts of harmful pollutants.

To try to make sure that pure air is available for SCBAs, many breathing air system manufacturers have placed refilling units on trailers or vehicles. They can be moved on-site for extended operations or removed from contaminated areas, and they can be ordered with or without compressors.

At least four of the big SCBA refilling system manufacturers, including Bauer, Scott Health & Safety, Air Systems International and Eagle Air, have developed mobile SCBA refilling stations, but they are substantially more expensive than a fixed system.

“We have equipment for not just trailers, but for trucks too,” said Anthony Gonzalez, general manager of Eagle Air, a maker of high-pressure breathing air systems based in Greensboro, N.C. “Unfortunately, if during an act of sabotage, the air where a compressor is located becomes fouled, you’re out of business.”
He said Eagle Air has developed proprietary filtration systems to purify and dry air because “you need to remove all contaminates and moisture before you bottle it.”

But filtration systems, regardless of how elaborate they are, cannot remove all contaminates, especially radiological materials. So the best solution, according to the manufacturers, is to provide the mobility to position refilling operations at locations with fresh air.

Ray Ellis, vice president of sales and marketing for Air Systems International, said he’s seen a surge in the demand for the mobile breathing air systems his company makes since terrorism became part of our daily lives. Nevertheless, his company still sells stationary compressors and refilling stations at the rate of 3 to 1 over trailer mounted and mobile stations.

Bill Dickson, Bauer Compressors’ national sales manager for breathing air products, points out features of a breathing air compressor at the company’s plant in Norfolk, Va.  (Fire Apparatus File Photo)

“We find that trailers are popular with hazmat teams, water rescue teams and similar response teams who don’t know how long they are going to be on the scene,” Ellis said. “If they go with just the tanks they have, on a good day they’ll be done in 37 minutes or less because that’s all the air they’ll have.”

Having a refilling station on site during a hazmat response is particularly useful, Ellis said, because workers won’t have to go through the decontamination process every time they need more air.

Air Systems International, headquartered in Chesapeake, Va., builds mobile refilling stations in box trailers and can customize each trailer to fit the needs of individual departments, according to Ellis.

Some departments want trailers with heating and air conditioning capabilities, so, they essentially become command posts, he said. Some departments want lights on the trailers, he said, while others want air reels and most want dual drive compressors that can be driven by diesel engines or electric motors, depending on available power sources.

“We’re a custom shop that works with departments to make sure they get what they want,” he said. “Some departments get really involved in designing their air trailers.”

Scott Health & Safety is relatively new to the breathing air refilling system market, having joined it about seven years ago.

“There’s a need for both fixed and portable air systems,” said Tom Korb, fire service marketing manager for Scott Health & Safety, headquartered in Monroe, N.C.

With a trailer mounted unit, Korb said, fire departments, especially volunteer organizations “get more bang for the buck” in that the trailers can be stored in the station and used as a fixed system or towed to scenes as needed.

Scott was recently involved with an order of Hackney Emergency Vehicle rescue units deployed in the greater Washington, D.C., area where Scott breathing air systems were included on the apparatus, according to Korb.

“We call them super trucks,” he said, adding that SCBA cylinders were filled in a production assembly line system during training and testing. “We filled a lot of cylinders in one hour.”

The exact number was 60 per hour, according to Marvin Carroll, product line manager for Scott’s breathing air systems.

“Heaven forbid that we ever have a 9/11 situation again, but if we do, there will be a need for a lot of air in a short amount of time,” said Carroll, noting that was why there were eight of the super trucks deployed in the region.

To help maintain that pace, Scott developed a trademarked refilling station called Revolve Air, a system that allows the filling of two bottles in the safety chamber, while two refilled cylinders are removed and replaced with two that need refilling, said Carroll.

Scott supplies mobile air for the all branches of the U.S. military, and Carroll said Scott’s trailers can be loaded in a DC 9 air cargo plane and transported wherever needed.

The company also has breathing air systems that can be installed on trucks, and Scott has worked with several apparatus builders over the years, including Pierce Manufacturing and Summit Fire Apparatus. Like other makers of mobile breathing air systems, Scott’s systems are powered by electric motors or diesel engines, or both, depending on the needs.

Sizing Compressors
By design, Scott’s mobile air trailers are smaller and can be towed by average-sized pickups, according to Carroll, and the company offers a variety of stationary and mobile breathing air systems from 5 hp to 75 hp.
“The amount of air you need to compress is key to deciding what size compressor you need,” Carroll said. Compressors need to run a minimum of 30 minutes per week, he said, and departments ought to keep that in mind when selecting breathing air systems.

Oversizing a compressor might mean the department couldn’t meet the minimum run time per week. “It’s important to keep the compressors exercised to keep the cylinders well lubricated and the moisture out of the system as much as possible,” Carroll said.

Even after decades of technological advancements, he said breathing air systems still rely on the old-fashioned, up-and-down piston action to compress air to the required 6,000 psi, the operating pressure of most refilling systems. “No other system will give us the pressure we need,” he said.

In all cases, Carroll said, purification systems are needed to make sure firefighters get nothing less than “grade A bottled air.”

Purification
While filtration systems are important, Bill Dickson, Bauer Compressors’ national sales manager for breathing air products, said there’s no filtration or purification system that can protect against strong radiation.

“Once a compressor is subjected to radiological contamination, the compressor is shot,” he said.

That’s one of the reasons why mobile breathing air systems make sense – giving fire departments the ability to move the systems out of contaminated areas. However, like Air Systems International, Bauer’s sales ratio is about three fixed systems to one mobile system.

“I would say they fit a certain niche,” Dickson said. “They’re certainly not selling as fast as they did in 2002C9 The grants are gone, and so are the free spending days.”

Those who might need mobile breathing air systems, he said, are hazmat teams or fire departments facing prolonged operations at structure fires.

To make up the slack business caused by shrinking grant money, Bauer, based in Norfolk, Va., is going after a range of potential buyers.

“We have products to cover a variety of facets of the market,” Dickson said. Bauer has compressors ranging from the Verticon, an entry level breathing air refilling system for price conscious departments, up to the top of the line Maxi Verticus with price points in between.

Like other breathing air system builders, he said Bauer has worked with a variety of apparatus builders, including Pierce, SuperVac (SVI) and Rosenbauer, to give firefighters and emergency personnel mobile air.
Bauer is one of the few breathing air system manufacturers that custom builds its own trailers specifically for breathing air.

The company has been enjoying some successes with a new related product that compresses oxygen for use in emergency medical service bottles. Dickson said the new line is going very well and keeping Bauer busy and profitable.

“We’re the only company that had our systems third-party laboratory tested with pure O2,” Dickson said, adding that most other companies don’t want to risk using oxygen for testing because it’s a volatile gas when mixed with combustibles.

Whether your department needs a mobile or a fixed breathing air refilling system, the experts agree, buy the size compressor needed to do the job. Mobile systems afford flexibility, while fixed station-mounted systems can be less expensive and offer stability.

“There really is a need for both stationary and mobile breathing air systems,” says Scott’s Carroll. “We see a lot of smaller departments grouping together to buy mobile systems and then they spread them around as neededC9 I’ve always been real passionate for mobile air. It’s a lot more flexible.”