Study on the Preparation of a Novel Gel Foam and Its Fire-Extinguishing Performance

Against the backdrop of global climate warming, forest fires have grown increasingly frequent and severe. Conventional fire-extinguishing agents are often difficult to deploy in complex vegetation environments due to their poor coverage, limited stability, and weak resistance to reignition. Gel foam is regarded as a suitable material for extinguishing forest fires. Therefore, based on the synergistic effect of foam and gel systems, this study developed a novel gel foam extinguishing agent with a three-dimensional network structure. By optimizing the blending ratio of surfactants and the concentrations of gelling agent and crosslinker, the optimal formulation was determined. The resulting gel phase was associated with improved water retention and structural persistence under the tested conditions. In fire-extinguishing tests, the agent reduced the temperature from 820 °C to 50 °C within 60 s, retained structural integrity for 60 min in the burn-back test, and showed no visible reignition during the 300 s monitoring period. The results indicate that the foam–gel combination improves liquid-film stability, restrains water evaporation, and maintains surface coverage, thereby enhancing the coverage, thermal stability, and reignition resistance of the extinguishing agent. This study provides new material solutions and technical support for the efficient prevention and control of forest fires, and promotes the scenario-specific application of fire-extinguishing materials.