Luke,
You are on to it mate!.
AFFF (Or Aqueous Film Forming Foam) is used in huge quantities at incidents like this.
It is made to enable simple water to "stick" to what is burning and enable better cooling effect, it is a variant of the fire retardant used in parts of the US during forest fires, although using different principles.
AFFF is mixed with water at the pump end and sprayed over the fire area.
Now to take this a stage further, why is it that some fire services around the world insist on using "Jet Branches", controllable, as in on and off, but cannot be used to alter the spray pattern of the particular branch, all you get is a single jet of water.
By Branch I mean Nozzle and the like.
Here in New Zealand, all of our Low and High pressure branches are set (and tested every weekend, or every day in the case of Career Stations)to be set at 42% Fog, regardless of wether there is water or foam going through them.
I must say a big thanks to Herrmann for the good pics!