Lloyd layman biography
Layman's work provides valuable insight into fire behavior....
Lloyd Layman ().
Editor’s note: For more on Lloyd Layman’s theories and how they can be applied in modern-day firefighting, see “The Plug” in the March issue of FireRescue.
In 1953, Lloyd Layman published Fire Fighting Tactics(1), followed by Attacking and Extinguishing Interior Fires(2) in 1955.
The books complement one other, but are nonetheless useful independently. The understanding that Layman garnered about fire behavior, through extensive tests conducted during World War II at Fort McHenry, Md., and later in Parkersburg, W.Va., far exceeded that of the typical firefighter–then, as it does now, over 55 years later.
Layman’s most significant finding was that small droplets of water are the most efficient in extinguishing fires.
As he noted, “The rate of heat absorption can be increased by increasing the surface exposure of a heat-absorbing substance in ratio with its volume.”(2) This means that the smaller the droplet of water, the more surface area that is exposed per volume, greatly i
