As soon as the firemen respond to your call for help at your local fire department, the firefighters immediately set up their power pumps and connect them to all of the major hose lines and other sources of water nearby. If it is a rather small fire in a contained area, it can be fully extinguished through a direct attack. This means that the firefighters make use of hand tools and utilize all of the sources of water and hose lines. The water is being supplied by all of the power pumps that they have set up, in addition to all of the other sources of water supply.



If the fire is in an open area where it can rapidly spread or in a large industrial building with a wide assortment of gasoline tanks and storage tanks that contain petroleum and other chemicals, a higher volume of water is necessitated and a higher application rate of fire suppression foam and other fire suppression systems. The indirect attack is another technique of fire suppression that is used in case the fire is spreading too quickly or is extremely hot for a person to approach. This is achieved by creating a line of fire that is further away from the actual fire but close enough to remain in the path of the fire. This method makes use of a lot of hand tools and rather weighty equipment, as well as all of the natural fire blockades that are available such as rivers, rock-strewn outcrops, and lakes. The fuel that is situated in front of the line of attack of the fire can be taken out by smoldering out from the line of fire towards the actual fire.



In a fire suppression method that makes use of foam as its principal suppressing agent, the fire can be put out by taking out the fuel and separating it from the air. This is achieved in a number of ways such as using the foam's water content to lower the temperature of the fuel. The blankets of foam can also curb the release of combustible vapors, as well as overpower the fire. In fire suppression foam systems, the foam should be carefully and efficiently carried out and released onto the fire in a rather controlled approach. Making use of foam as a fire suppression agent can effectively extinguish and put out fires in large industrial buildings, as well as prevent the eventual spreading of large fires in an open area.