"My face was chemically burned and my eyes were really blood shot and they were sore," Strouse said in an interview with this newspaper. "Then the next day I was actually taken off the job."

Strouse, 38, a veteran firefighter for more than a decade at Wright-Patterson, was reassigned to administrative duties. But his condition gradually worsened, he said. He's now been off work for more than three months.

The injury to Strouse comes as concerns over aqueous film forming foam, or AFFF, have soared in recent years.

AFFF has been used in training by the military since the 1970s and is considered more effective than water to extinguish petroleum-based fires.

In another example, firefighters snapped a photo of a 2x4 being used at an angle to keep an overhead radio in place.

A photo given to Channel 2 shows how firefighters used duct tape to fix an air-conditioning problem overhead in a different truck. Tape goes for several feet overhead around air-conditioning vents.

“They had the duct tape around there to hold those vents in place and to cut down on the water condensation from the units,” White said.

Gwiozdowski said the accident left two bays out of service. A contractor quickly arrived, and the company got the fire police vehicle, the second vehicle that was in the bay, safely out. Neither of the vehicles was damaged and the company remained in service throughout the night.