Just an Idea for Your Consideration

[Iann]

Are there any down sides? Will it work?

C02 Spike

Regarding; burning soil/permafrost and several firefighters. A large C02 canister attached to a long spike. The spike will be hand rammed into soft forest soil as deep as possible. Turn on low gas to seep into soils injecting a temp burning “dead zone” or similar set up. Gas should hang around for a bit underground or maintained to create “fire-breaks.” Hopefully, you would use less C02 than the burnt forest would produce.

C02 Bubbles.

In my hometown people like to soap bubble the fountain. I have seen amazingly large, massed bubble chunks wafting down the high street on a puff of wind. Think plastic lidless dustbin ¼ filled with continuous soapy water strapped to your back. C02 pressure piped through very fine shower head producing the smallest bubbles possible. Fixed through bottom of dustbin under deepest water or similar set up. It would use far less water than direct water flow and stick to branches leaves bark etc. On mass, walls of C02 bubble stacks supported by the trees can be lined up for firebreak ahead of fires or dumped around a tree or wafted into fires with wind from behind or from a plane. Also, with a lid on the dustbin attached to a wide long pipe you may be able to direct a stream. Also, a water crowd control vehicle pumped with C02 could achieve a jet hose or with similar setup perhaps. Cheap and relatively eco-friendly, soap never harmed my Grandad’s roses.

To all the practical “builder” and “innovator” firefighters out there, what do you think? Or has it been done? Thanks for listening.

[BurtMacklin]

So it sounds like the application of these is two ideas is for wildland fire fighting, the primary method of containing wild fires is to interrupt the fuel source through a fire break. Water is used as a passive agent to remove heat from the fire and reduce the chance of unburnt fuel igniting, damping down, it is less effective. Co2 extinguishes through the displacement of oxygen which in an outside wide area is not suitable. Large fires create their own wind which would displace any foam. I also don’t fully understand the spike idea but I’m almost certain it would just absorb into the air and not actually have any effect on a fire and large cylinders are heavy and cumbersome so probably impractical for wildland application. 

[Matt]

The spike idea is not a new one especially on peat moors, was only talking about this last week.  An older branch no longer used now would be rammed into the ground back in the 70s/80's and driven in that way and flood the area with water, now a Cobra lance is used and I do believe Hampshire have a spike used for thatch fires but would work the same.  

The idea was also talked about flooding the area with HVPU's, would be a lot less resource intensive and deal with it quicker at a job up on the Humberside/South Yorkshire border the other year.  

[Becile]

The spike idea is used extensively with us who have peat areas, injected into the soil assisted by ultra high pressure (uhp) with or without a cutting agent (cobra system) or a compressed air foam (cafs ) Lance. You would need so much CO to stop a fire of this type ( and water is free for firefighting..CO isn’t ! Then there’s the transport etc requirements of CO - it’s probably  a no go I’m afraid. Your CO would only interrupt the oxygen source for a mimimal time if at all , before it dissipated and ignition returned. Given how much is in a typical sized CO fire extinguisher , that is designed for a small fire, you start to see the downfalls of such a system...but never say never.I’m sure most of modern day ideas started with someone saying “that will never work”

[Iann]

Thanks for replies guys, it's good to keep exploring new/old ideas. I wish you all safe days.

😀

 

[Keith]

Think you missed a very important 2 @Becile.😉

[Becile]

Well spotted 😄 didnt even notice id missed that  - I was consistent though.