SANTA CLARA — Fluffy white foam filled a Santa Clara street Friday when a fire-suppression system at a privately-owned hangar at San Jose International Airport malfunctioned.
The substance, known formally as “aqueous film-forming foam,” started flowing around 10:50 a.m. at Signature Flight Support on Martin Avenue, said Capt. Mitch Matlow of the San Jose Fire Department. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the system to fail.
“When it goes off, all of the foam gets discharged,” Matlow said. “The purpose is to prevent a flammable liquid fire inside the hangar from spreading. If there had been a fire, this system would’ve worked very well.
“It makes lots and lots of foam,” he continued. “It’s essentially like bubbles in your bathtub.”
The substance filled up the 60-foot-tall hangar and spilled out into the street, Matlow said.
At first glance, the foam appeared to be snow, creating the illusion of a mysterious winter wonderland in sunny California. The neighborhood was abuzz with excitement Friday afternoon, as people stopped to gawk and snap pictures with their cellphones.
One man in a pickup truck leaned out of his window and asked San Jose police officers, “When does Santa arrive?”
One of the officers replied, “You just missed him.”
Brendon Baumgartner, who works at the IT company NetCal Consulting down the block, heard about the spill in the company chat room. He came to see it for himself on his way to lunch.
“It looks almost like snow if you don’t get too close. You just kind of want to jump in there, see what happens,” he said. “When the wind hits it, it kind of turns into these little soapy puffballs.”
In its concentrated form, the chemical used to create the foam is a carcinogen and an irritant, Matlow said, but it loses those properties when diluted. Still, he said, it wasn’t the “wisest idea” to play in the substance, though that didn’t stop one man from riding through on his bike.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries.
Martin Avenue was expected to be closed well into Friday evening as Clean Harbors Inc. cleaned up the spill. Matlow said the company planned to spray a de-foaming agent, block off storm drains and suction up the resulting liquid into a tanker to be disposed of properly.
“They’ve got their work cut out for them,” Matlow said.
San Francisco Baykeeper staff scientist Ian Wren expressed some concern about the substance getting into waterways and potentially poisoning wildlife, especially with rain expected this weekend.
“We’re glad there was a rapid response,” he said, “but we hope regulators and (Signature Flight Support) make sure this does not happen again.”
