h a l f b a k e r yQuis custodiet the custard?
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Fire blankets are very effective. They are also very small.
Bushfires (Forest fires) tend to be very large. One of the most effective innovations, recently, in fighting forest fires is airdropping water on them, from helicranes.
The Firefighting Blanket is a really big version of the fire
blankets that are mandatory in commercial kitchens.
A heavy lift chopper manoeuvres into place, over a hotspot, and drops a bundle that measures about 15ft cubed. It drops rapidly towards the fire, until it is at an optimum height, as determined by an operator in the chopper.
He/she then fires the four rockets attached to the corners of the blanket. They streak outwards, in opposite directions, stretching the flameproof blanket out to its full size, before rotating towards the ground and accelerating into the earth, anchoring themselves firmly with strong harpoon spears. Leave in place 24 hours, to minimise the risk of flareup.
The blanket reduces dramatically the accessibility of oxygen to the fire, smothering it. Manufactured from tightly woven, flame retardant fibres, it can squash a fire front 400m (440yds) x 1600m (1mi.).
Smaller versions might be developed to, rather than stop fires in forested areas, protect valuable property if they are deployed to smother/prevent blazes in built structures.
The smaller version could be deployed by ground forces. I have an image of a couple of firefighters setting up mortars on the front lawn of a house, then firing a blanket over a house, like a bird-trapping net, to protect it against an oncoming blaze.
Dry Ice Forest Fire Retardant
http://www.halfbake..._20Fire_20Retardant
Shameless self-promotion/related link [st3f, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]
Fire retardant slurry
http://wildfires.nw...an/faq/answer10.htm
What is that stuff made of? [half, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Another Christo approach to covering the Earth with Fabric
http://www.southala...s/chryslee/otr.html
Yes, I know this is an image of covering water, not fire, but it's all in a day's work. [jurist, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Hobart's Funnies
http://www.dday.co.uk/page42.html
[oneoffdave, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Firefighter/starter arrested
http://www.chbc.com...e=article&sid=10771
How many more did he start in 2003? [mensmaximus, Feb 27 2005]
[link]
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<Mick Dundee>Call that a fire blanket? Nah, THIS is a fire blanket!<MD> |
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This would be brilliant for the gorse/heath fires that we get in the UK. They are nowhere near as big as the Aussie ones but most take place in areas that are difficult for conventional fire fighting appliance to access. These areas are also fairly treeless too, thus preventing 'tenting' of the fire blanket. |
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I presume the blanket will be white in colour ? The French could use this idea to deploy enormous white flags ...... |
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That's the firefighting sheet. |
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Have you considered the military applications? Remotely deployed smart blankets, anyone? |
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Alternate method of deployment: Unrolled from the back of a heavy aeroplane. (pictures massive toilet-roll holder on the back of a hercules). |
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During the short Australian non-inferno season the rocket-propelled fire blankets can be used to give children magic carpet rides. |
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I'm unsure what fabric could be strong enough to withstand the forces that would be exerted on such a device, but the sight of one at work would be worth it. |
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You could have a lot of fun, running the rockets in a great, big circle. |
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Smother it...uh <coughs>. That could work. At the very least it would be much easier than creating fire lines manually. (+) |
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whimsickle: //military applications// You mean carpet bombing? |
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1.Would the blanket be heavy enough to crush trees and structures?
2. If not, would the non-airtight nature of the covering still result in sufficient oxygen starvation for the fire to go out?
3. Is firing rockets at fire sensible?
4. And how much would these rockets cost?
5. And how do you pack up the blanket again (assuming you do, of course)? |
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5. Just burn it when you're done with it. |
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Make it biodegradable? Or is biodegradable inconsistent with flame retardant? |
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To avoid it having to cover trees and things, it could release a fire-retarding substance like halon as soon as a pre-determined area and altitude has been reached. Then it quickly shreds itself into little biodegradeable pieces which flutter down into the newly halonised area, to avoid harming little mammals - if any survive the fire and the halon, that is. |
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If you've seen the destructive power of a big bushfire you wouldn't be unsure as to whether anything survives the fire. The air superheats to around 1100C, temporarily. That vaporises the resinous oils out of leaves, ahead of the fire. The air itself ignites. |
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//biodegradable inconsistent with flame retardant?// Last summer there were some quite large fires here in Arizona. That provided an opportunity to learn via television interviews that the fire retardant (colored red) "slurry" that is dropped from planes is actually a fertilizer. |
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The aeroplane which drops the blanket should also drop unfired clay pots into the path of the fire. 1100C is enough for a raku firing. |
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This is a really good idea (+) |
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I think UB and the artist Christo should put their heads together. Fabric installations on this sort of scale are something he already has experience with, and if it doesn't have the fire-breaking results that were originally expected, you can still call it "Art". |
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//The air superheats to around 1100C// |
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How about asbestos koala suits? You could have little gloves so the adorable little things can continue to tree-hug. |
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A built in respirator may be too much to ask. Hopefully, they can learn to hold their breath. |
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Nobody has mentioned the fact that hot air rises... There will be some kind of hot air balloon effect after the rockets have opened up the said blanket. I doubt there will be sufficient effect to enable us to go ballooning, (although if //The air superheats to around 1100C// then it might) in any case it will distort the path of descent of the blanket. |
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Furthermore, lets now assume that the blanket is ballasted to counter this updraft. Then there might be a danger that as the blanket falls it causes a draft of air horizontally - fanning the flames outwards. |
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Jinbish raises good points. Although fire typically sucks air inwards along the ground while pumping hot air out at the top. Perhaps a very gradually descending blanket would be able to slowly smother a fire by countering this inward flow. |
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Adorable little things? I'm guessing you've never met a koala [FM] |
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What about a remotely operated fire-carpet laying tank, like the Hobart's 'funnies' developed for D-Day? [link] |
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That's some good halfbaking work right there. there should be more anti-forest fire ideas. Are the fires meant to be an important part of the life cycle of the forest? I get a little confused on this. |
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Yes, [Zircon], that's my understanding. The enormous crazy out of control fires are often the result of a zero-tolerance fire policy (here in the U.S., anyway), whereby undergrowth is artifically allowed to proliferate, until >spark< WHOOM! |
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That's part of the problem here, too. The point of this is to bring the big, fast blazes under control so that controlled burns can be performed. |
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The updraught issue is the reason I have the rockets anchor the blanket to the ground. |
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Forests have trees, trees are tall, thus preventing the fire blanket from covering the fire completely. |
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On this day we have rain,about bloody time. |
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(breaks out calculator) um...so the blanket is made out of some miracle material only .0000258" thick? Anyone know where we can get some scrith? |
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Carbon nano-fibers?
(+) (Ducks, and scurries for cover) |
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No, Freefall, it's much thicker than that. The heat of the fire triggers a catalytic reaction between the waste CO2 from the combustion of carboniferous fuels in the conflagration and a coating compound on the fibres, causing it to rise like a giant, flame-retardant pizza base. (TINPUET) |
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[Imback], how long do you think the air under the blanket will last, with a fire under there at the beginning? |
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[madradish], no, I've never met one personally, but my wife has. |
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She told me they are cute, fluffy, hug trees all day and taste much like chicken. |
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Q. So the rockets propel the blanket and harpoon themselves to anchor the blanket. Fair enough, but in the process of propelling, won't the blanket act like a giant fan spreading the flames out? Or does that action actually help starve the fire of oxygen as well as smother it? |
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Oi! Just watch the Bush burning comments if you don't mind. |
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Personally, I think this is a superb idea. How about counteracting the upward draft of hot-air and the spread of fire (by the blanket pushing air downwards) by making the blanket dome shaped in the first place. Drop it from a plane in it's compressed form (stability may be an issue here) - when it reaches a height of circumference / 4 you can fire your rockets at the floor, securing the dome to the floor, as it's a sphere there should be no effect on the downward air pressure - then pump it full of halon, or pump the oxygen out or let the fire snuff itself out. |
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Ok,here's another one. I see a giant gonflable, dome shaped, quarter of a mile square, its upper skin made of fire blanket with a gas-impermeable lining, its lower skin made of said lining material, the whole inflated with an almost-lighter-than-air oxygen excluder (chemistry help required). The mattress is lowered into place using a Chinook or two, the heat destroys the lining releasing the extinguishing gas, the blanket excludes oxygen. Ta daaa. |
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...and as the fire is extinguished, dough woven cunningly into the blanket is cooked into nice fresh croissants for the clean-up crew to enjoy. |
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I like this idea, but the preferred application raises some questions for me. While it seems to be accepted practice that people build structures too close to the forest or bush, and this brings about a (somewhat artificial) "need" for fighting or preventing forest fires, the result of our intervention is quite the opposite of what nature seems intent on. The fire will eventually happen, and will be much more spectacular as the result of our interference. It also comes to mind that certain species of evergreen (here in the US, at least... such as the lodge pole pine) require an occasional fire in order to propagate. Other species (spruce, etc.) thrive in the shade provided by the taller lodge pole pines. In forests or bush areas that are home to these fire-dependant species, this makes a full burn desirable (for re-growth) over a partial burn where the dead trees are left standing, which is probably what a blanket like this would leave behind.
Whenever I see a news report on the devastation caused by a forest or bush fire, it's quantified in how many millions of dollars worth of damage it caused to structures in the vicinity. So with this in mind (when relating to forest fires), wouldn't it be more desirable to develop a method of protecting individual structures rather than extinguishing the whole fire?
By the way, it would have been tremendously uplifting to have seen news coverage reporting that UB's fire blanket was deployed over Staten Island yesterday, saving several lives and preventing millions in collateral damage.
(+) for the concept. |
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I think to avoid Jin's air current issue, the blanket should have a hole in the center, like a parachute. Thus the air will be directed inwards and up; then once the blanket has been firmly fixed to its anchor points, it can be remotely triggered to advance / close up. |
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That would also allow the fire to burn itself out without spreading any further than the edges of the blanket. |
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1Bubba: Heat rises, any air getting to the fire will be through the sides. The blanket will merely be a table top. Plenty of air will be sucked into the sides. This fire-blanket is a fire-umbrella. |
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Actually, the blanket will force the rising air, devoid now of oxygen, out the edges, smothering the fire there. (Try it and see.) |
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Fair enough, except, with un updraft of hot air from an already burning forest, even with the magic of rockets, this blanket would be hard to deliver and even upon landing the fire would fine inhilation and ventilation. Also, a material that can withstand such heat at a practical thickness is surely hard to come by. Maybe if the blanket were propelled downward with the force of falling water and designed to open like a parachute it would be more resilient to heat. |
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That's pretty much how I envisaged it would occur, [reensure]. |
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[doublentendre] makes a good point. Rather than use these to stop fires in forested areas, they could be better employed to smother/prevent blazes in built structures. |
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The smaller version could be deployed by ground forces. I have an image of a couple of firefighters setting up mortars on the front lawn of a house, then firing a blanket over a house, like a bird-trapping net, to protect it against an oncoming blaze. |
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The smaller blankets could also be thicker, and heavier, for a given area. This would make them more effective. |
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Small, airlaunched versions could be used to protect pockets of firefighters, trapped by encroaching fire fronts. |
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I agree - the greatest tragedies might be prevented by placing priority on protecting structures, and legged life forms. |
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I just caught a few minutes of 4 Corners, which is an investigative program on ABC TV here in Oz. |
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They reported on the operation to catch some bastard who worked as a firefighter, whilst setting at least 25 major bushfires. |
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I didn't see how many lives he cost, nor am I a serious advocate for capital punishment, but it would probably be a fairly popular move to bind him hand and foot, then sit him atop a sharpened stake, arse-first, and let gravity do its work, for all would-be arsonists to see. |
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The Zulus used once do this to captives. Apparently it's a pretty effective deterrent |
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We could use something like this in Kelowna B.C. right about now UnaBubba.
If its not too much of an inconvenience I would like to place an order for two of the standard bungalow size house blankets, and enough of the air-lifted variety to cover a couple thousand hectares. I figure I have about a week before the blaze out here gets to my house so if there is any way you could speed up production and maybe have them FedExed, that'd be super.
Oh, C.O.D's all right eh? |
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Time to buy home insurance. |
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And have a swimming pool and a pump and hose installed. |
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Built the 24 ft. pool last weekend but I think I'm going to need one helluva pump.
(update) Make that two days. |
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...er maybe tomorow. Early. |
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Good luck with that. Are the authorities able to handle the advance of the front? |
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Like [my_face_your], I'm skeptical of trying to minimize forest fire spread by firing -rockets- at the edges of said fire! |
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Perhaps, tho, if said rockets also detonated nuclear warheads in mid-air, they could help suck in huge volumes of local oxygen, quickly suffocating (if not vaporizing) dying nearby animals, while diversifying (by mutation) local anaerobic microbes, and thus speeding up ecological succession. |
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They are having no luck slowing it down at all. Last night from the deck we could see the silhouettes of all the surrounding hills as the flames came over the tops of them. The outlying areas have begun to be evacuated. |
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We get that sort of fire here way too often. Good luck. |
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A volunteer fire-fighter was recently arrested for starting fires in the Kelowna Bologna area of BC. |
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We arrested a volunteer fire fighter here, a few years ago. One of his blazes caused 3 or 4 deaths. |
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