LA fires

[j.sabourn]

The salit water bit sounds feasible Rodney. Where I used to live was 200 metres off the Indian Ocean , but when we had bush fires the helicopters persisting on filling up from a large fresh water ornamental lake 50 feet from my house. I kicked up about scooping up all the fish etc. from lake and not using seawater. The excuse was it was prohibitive to use salt water ion the helicopters due to the corrosive quality’s of the salt. They didn’t know they were talking to a seaman where salt water on a ship was a continuous battle with chipping hammers and scrapers. Cheers JS…..

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The salit water bit sounds feasible Rodney. Where I used to live was 200 metres off the Indian Ocean , but when we had bush fires the helicopters persisting on filling up from a large fresh water ornamental lake 50 feet from my house. I kicked up about scooping up all the fish etc. from lake and not using seawater. The excuse was it was prohibitive to use salt water ion the helicopters due to the corrosive quality’s of the salt. They didn’t know they were talking to a seaman where salt water on a ship was a continuous battle with chipping hammers and scrapers. Cheers JS…….

[Des Taff Jenkins]

WEelived in the Blue Mountains during the last big fire, as Vernon will know it was horrendous. My boss on the Ferry I worked on told me I had better go home as Betty had been on the phone to say that Elvis the big helicopter was dropping water on our house, I was off but it took an hour by train I could see the mountain was all fire, when I got home we packed the car with whatever we thought was what we would miss the most and headed down to the Penrith Leagues club where people were congregating, our house wasn't damaged but such was the heat that summer and had been for five years, we sold up and went to NZ for three years, I don't know what was the worst LoL.
Des
Ps we have a video of one of the biggest fire storms in the Mountains, only watched it twice, as we both end up crying.

[happy daze john in oz]

Here in Victoria we know what fire is.
Since the early 80's we have had a number of extreme fire events.
Ash Wednesday in 1983 when a fire front some 500 miles long from the Adelaide hills to the Victorian peninsular burned every thing in its way.

Black Saturday in the early 2000's took out a whole town and almost all the residents.

But we consider we are a bit smart, doing off season burns to reduce fire load.

Could be bad this year, very dry spring and early summer with very little rain.
The country side is Oz green, that is as brown as you can get and dry as a nuns preverbial.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hers an odd thing about these fires, we went and had a butchers after one fire had burnt out a street a mate live in, one house in the middle of the row was untouched, I asked a fireman why, he said the fires needs oxygen, and it must have sucked all the oxygen out of that house therefore it couldn't burn, I have seen a couple of streets with one hose untouched.
Des

[j.sabourn]

The basics of fire Des. If memory correct the fire triangle .. take away any one and hey presto No Fire …Oxygen,
Fuel, Combustion or maybe should say Ignition. JS. Also the principle on tankers today using the inert system by using the flu gases and putting through a water chamber and hence into a tank and making the tank either too rich or too sparse of oxygen and so inerting the chance of explosion and fire. That long ago and as often say was never overjoyed on tankers ,so stand to be corrected. JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

John
When I worked on the Ferry in Sydney I was looking down the engine room when I saw smoke, {It was the generator on fire} I rushed around and opened the door to the fire alarms and pressed the button, unfortunately I pressed te wrong one and set of that chemical spray that dowsed everything the the generator room, the boss was pleased about the fire being put out, but not about paying to refill the tank of retardant, very expensive .
Des

[j.sabourn]

C.O.2 .? Or the one they got to replace it, which found out later was harmful to use ,names on tip of tongue but due to old age refuses to come out. Going further back steam smothering did the job originally . If having prostrate trouble Des could maybe extinguished by free use of you know what ! Notice again that ambiguous word prostrate as against prostate take your pick., Cheers JS.

[happy daze john in oz]

Could be right, in the news today it showed the fire ravaged area in California and in one corner two houses still untouched.

[James Curry]

Would a simple bit of plumbing not go a long way to protect homes in vulnerable areas. If you have a swimming pool fit a valve in the pool pumproom to draw water from the pool into spray line/noozles fitted on the roof, at least it would help to handle sparks and burning embers that land on the roof. Same system could fitted to the domestic water supply. The run off would also help to protect the walls. Maybe I am wrong but are Cedar tingles not used a lot in the construction industry in the states?

[John Arton]

Apparently they don't use seawater to fight fires as the salts in the water kill the land and prevents new growth happening as is normal after the fires are extinguished.
Rgds
J.A