|
|
Post by Sammamish WA on Sept 17, 2003 2:17:34 GMT -5
A few homes in areas where all of the homes got burned to the ground survived because the home owners had placed sprinklers on their roofs and surrounding property. During the height of the fire there were notices not to use one's water sprinkler system since it would not work. What pack of lies that turned out to be.  I talked to numerous home owners who did not listen to this false information from your experts in charge, and today they have a home to come to "home to".  |
|
Jane
New Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Jane on Sept 17, 2003 2:29:35 GMT -5
uhhh...actually, the water supply to many homes was cut off. i would know this because it happened at our house. we left it running and came back to the house later to find that it had been shut off
|
|
|
|
Post by Drip torch in the woods on Sept 17, 2003 11:04:48 GMT -5
You guys are just trying to fire me up, aren't you?
Radiant heat is kind of a strange thing...
A level of Radiant heat that will burn exposed skin in less than 5 seconds can take over 20 minutes to lit a 2X4 on fire. Some form of secondary ignition and not the fireball, usually takes out most homes that do get destroyed in an interface fire incident. The 1200 degree spike in temperature associated with the fireball, or flame front only lasts about 45 seconds and the temperature spikes downward with the passing of the front almost as fast as it spikes upwards with the onset.
Two interface fire common denominators…
The municipal water system inevitably fails and relatively small secondary ignitions in fuels surrounding the homes usually destroy more homes than the actual flame front does.
Shutting down sprinkler systems doesn’t make sense.
|
|
|
|
Post by Sammamish WA on Sept 18, 2003 2:19:39 GMT -5
You guys are just trying to fire me up, aren't you? Radiant heat is kind of a strange thing... A level of Radiant heat that will burn exposed skin in less than 5 seconds can take over 20 minutes to lit a 2X4 on fire. Some form of secondary ignition and not the fireball, usually takes out most homes that do get destroyed in an interface fire incident. The 1200 degree spike in temperature associated with the fireball, or flame front only lasts about 45 seconds and the temperature spikes downward with the passing of the front almost as fast as it spikes upwards with the onset. Two interface fire common denominators… The municipal water system inevitably fails and relatively small secondary ignitions in fuels surrounding the homes usually destroy more homes than the actual flame front does. Shutting down sprinkler systems doesn’t make sense. In laymans' terms, going out and wetting the surrounding brush near ones home would reduce the chances of allowing this brush to get set on fire and then spread to ones home. Moral of the story is to wet any dry materials next to ones home if you have no time to remove this material.  |
|
|
|
Post by tragicallyblonde on Sept 19, 2003 0:37:35 GMT -5
hey Drip, correct if I am wrong,...power is needed to pump the water, they had to de-energize alot of live lines, ( fiance works for Aquila, now Fortis...a new bill to appear soon!!! ;D ;D ) they kept on power where neccessary, and turned it off when a hazard to fire personal on 8-22-03.. TB
|
|
|
|
Post by Drip torch in the woods on Sept 19, 2003 4:12:13 GMT -5
Hey TB,
Not sure on the time line of the Kelowna power outages, or if a power outage would immediately affect the water system, but in general terms the water system being rendered inadequate is a very common interface fire scenario.
Oakland Hills fire of 1920 something… the water system failed…100’s of homes destroyed and the residents were outraged.
Then there was the Oakland Hills fire of 1976 and one of the first things that happened was the power grid was taken down and immediately the water system failed. A few hundred homes were destroyed and the residents were outraged.
Oh and then there was the Oakland Hill fire of 1991 and after the fire took out over 700 homes in the first few hours of the blaze, all the open water lines and the downed power lines… (I know your not going to believe this) caused the water system to fail. 21 civilian lives were lost, close to a thousand homes were destroyed and the residents were outraged.
I’m not sure if Kelowna relies on pumps&valves, or if it is strictly a gravity fed system, but loss of the water system is very common in almost all the large interface scenarios that I’m aware of. In my opinion, so common, I’m inclined to ask if it wouldn’t be prudent to plan fire suppression operations assuming the failure as a given and leave the sprinkler systems on?
|
|
|
|
Post by Sammamish on Sept 21, 2003 1:02:18 GMT -5
The water system is feed from huge water holding tanks and hence is gravity fed. Power had already filled these huge in ground tanks. |
|
