Foam Apocalypse is here! Or on the street in Santa Clara, California, to be exact. Last Saturday morning, at around 11 a.m., a 3-metre (10-foot) high foam blob took over the street and filled the entire city block.
Although the cause of the foam leak is still unclear, the authorities say that it resulted from an unintentional fire alarm in a hangar at Mineta San Jose International Airport, releasing a 3-metre tall foam onto the road. This also led to a seemingly unstoppable flood of the flame-retarding foam in the neighbouring Martin Avenue.
You can watch the on the spot local news station KTVU Fox 2’s coverage of the foam tide on Facebook live.
There was a guy seen to having a lot of fun while riding his bike through the mysterious foam, ignorant of the fact that consuming or exposure to flame retardants in high quantities can lead to skin irritations and even can be carcinogenic.
These days the flame retardant foam made out of an aqueous film forming foam (AFFF), which helps in cutting down flame’s contact with oxygen thus stopping any further combustion.
But the kind of AFFF used in airport hangars is high-expansion foams, capable of expanding more than 200 to 1,000 times of their condensed volume and able to quickly fill a space, the reason why the foam covered the entire street in no time.
WATCH LIVE: Fire fighting foam floods streets in Santa Clara https://t.co/p73tqFjquU pic.twitter.com/LnNI59nJA0
— ABC30 Fresno (@ABC30) November 18, 2016
The environmental cleanup company, Clean Harbors, has been asked to help in removing the foam and making sure it doesn’t pose an environmental threat to local water sources and the public.
Firefighting foam released from back of @FlySJC hangar is blowing around in the wind. It looks like soap, but I wouldn’t advise touching it. pic.twitter.com/fDI3j0gmP7
— Jonathan Bloom (@BloomTV) November 18, 2016
Nevertheless, it did give us a fun topic to help spend our weekend!