SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — The Spokane Valley Fire Department (SVFD) announced Monday it replaced its firefighting foam with new, safer foam.
The new foam does not contain perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs), chemicals that have been linked to contaminated water supplies.
Washington state passed the Firefighting Agents and Equipment Law in 2018. That law prohibits the use of Class B aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), a type of firefighting foam that contains PFASs used for training purposes.
These chemicals entered the water in Airway Heights in 2017 after Fairchild Air Force Base (FAFB) used AFFF containing PFAS for firefighting training. The compounds then seeped into groundwater and moved into municipal and private drinking water wells, according to the city of Airway heights.
The water was deemed unsafe to drink until March 2022.
SVFD's previous foam was still allowed by the state to be used in emergency response calls involving flammable liquids; however, the department made the decision to replace all Class B AFFF with new foam that does not contain PFASs.
“This was the right decision, to remove the harmful foam for the safety of our firefighters, our citizens and our environment," Spokane Valley Fire Chief Frank Soto Jr. said in a statement.
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