Tyco Fire Products (Johnson Controls)

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• Did you know2023

  Tyco Fire Products' AFFF manufacturing created an environmental contamination liability that is simultaneously a fire safety requirement and a public health disaster. AFFF is still mandated by FAA regulations for airport rescue and firefighting (ARFF) operations at commercial airports in the US, and by DoD regulations at military airbases — yet the EPA's 2024 PFAS Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 4 parts per trillion in drinking water means virtually every airport, military base, and refinery that conducted fire training exercises with AFFF for the past 50 years now has groundwater contamination above the MCL. The US Air Force alone has identified PFAS contamination at over 700 military installations. Tyco Fire Products' AFFF created both the solution (aviation and industrial fire safety, saving lives in fuel fires) and the problem (permanent PFAS contamination of aquifers near every major airport and airbase). The company that sold the product that the government required for fire safety is now a primary defendant in litigation to remediate the contamination caused by that legally required product.

  Johnson Controls ↗

• Origin2024

  AFFF (aqueous film-forming foam) was co-developed by 3M Company and US Navy researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory in the late 1960s specifically to fight jet fuel fires on aircraft carrier decks — a critical military need because water was ineffective at suppressing burning JP-4 jet fuel. The PFAS (fluorosurfactant) chemistry in AFFF allowed the foam to flow across jet fuel surfaces as a thin aqueous film, instantly cutting off the oxygen supply. 3M licensed AFFF technology to Tyco's Ansul and Chemguard divisions, which manufactured and distributed AFFF concentrates to airports, military bases, refineries, and industrial facilities globally for five decades. In 2000, 3M voluntarily exited PFAS manufacturing after its own research identified bioaccumulation in human blood. Tyco and the remaining AFFF manufacturers continued for approximately 20 more years, until EPA rulemaking, Congressional pressure, and mass tort litigation beginning around 2018 forced the industry-wide transition. Tyco/Johnson Controls became a multi-billion-dollar PFAS litigation defendant partly because 3M's early exit left Tyco as the dominant residual AFFF supplier — the company that kept supplying what the military and aviation industry required.

  Johnson Controls / Tyco Fire Products ↗

• Concentration2023

  Tyco Fire Products is simultaneously one of the world's primary fire safety infrastructure companies AND one of the primary defendants in the largest environmental contamination tort litigation in US history (PFAS / AFFF litigation), placing the company in an unusual position of ongoing product necessity and ongoing legal liability from past products. Tyco/Johnson Controls contributed to a 2023 settlement in AFFF PFAS litigation totaling approximately $1.25B with Johnson Controls alone. The total PFAS liability for the AFFF industry (including 3M's $10.3B settlement with municipal water utilities in 2023) is estimated in the hundreds of billions — larger than the asbestos and tobacco litigation settlements adjusted for inflation. The Grinnell fire sprinkler brand (Tyco) is separate from the AFFF liability but occupies the same corporate entity, meaning that the profits from life-safety fire sprinklers are cross-subsidizing the PFAS remediation liability from AFFF. Tyco Fire Products therefore represents a case where the fire safety industry and the environmental contamination industry are the same company.

  Johnson Controls International ↗