This is not the Long Beach incident, but is a December 11, 2008 photo from a test of a fire suppression foam system at a new aircraft hangar in Salina, Kansas. The system put three feet of foam on the floor in 52 seconds.An alarm company technician working on an aircraft hanger door at the Long Beach, California airport accidentally triggered the high-expansion foam system, filling the hangar with foam to a depth of six feet. A police helicopter, a police car, and other vehicles were buried in the stuff. Here is a video showing the aftermath.
(the video is no longer available)
HERE is a link to a video shot from the interior of a hangar in Las Vegas during a scheduled test of a similar system.
By the way, in 2006 the Department of Agriculture approved the use of firefighting foam to kill commercial chickens infected with the deadly bird flu virus. In 2002 and 2003 some of our wildland firefighters and incident management teams were used to kill chickens that were infected with Exotic Newcastle Disease using more hands-on methods.
