Bondurant Ultra Pressure Program Award
Bondurant, September 17, 2019 --
BONDURANT, Iowa – The City of Bondurant is excited to announce it was awarded the 2019 program of the Year by Iowa City/Iowa Management Association (IaCMA) for the Bondurant Ultra Pressure Program. IaCMA’s Annual Awards program honors creative contributions to professional local government management and increases public awareness of the value of professional management to the quality of life in our communities. The Program of the Year Award is presented to a local government in the recognition of an innovative and successful program.
Ultra-high pressure is defined by the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) as pump pressures above 1100 psi. By flowing water at these pressures, 10 times the surface area is created by breaking down conventional water droplets into 64 smaller droplets, decreasing the amount of water used to approximately a fifth of what conventional firefighting would use. Greater surface area means more contact with the fire and more efficient heat absorption. When the water droplet absorbs heat, it converts to steam, displacing oxygen, removing heat from the superheated environment and extinguishing the fire. Bondurant Emergency Services now has two similar systems in place.
The City retrofitted the 2006 brush truck with a standard UHP system. Bondurant also has a 100-gallon system that was designed for the command truck. This is the first cold-weather UHP system in the nation. To date, both systems have been used on multiple fires successfully. City staff has been so impressed by the systems, the City hosted a UHP Summit, which drew firefighters from multiple states. Bondurant believes in science and technology and hosted the summit to help educate others on the benefit.
The UHP systems in Bondurant address the goal of advancing firefighting capabilities, reducing response times, and decreasing long-term fire operation costs.
Learn more about the Iowa City/Iowa Management Association (IaCMA) at https://www.iacma.net