Fire devastation

[mrcharly]

The area where I grew up in Western Australia has been devastated by bushfires. Flames up to 50m high, 55 000 hectares burnt out so far, unknown numbers of houses and businesses destroyed.
Yarloop, a small, old village has been almost levelled, including tragically one of the best museums in Australia (Yarloop Workshops).

I've written about Yarloop Workshops before. It was built to service the timber industry, included repair shops for all machinery, a foundry and the wooden forms for every single part required to make a steam engine. A national treasure.

So far, there has not been a record of anyone losing their life. Quite incredible. Over a wide swath of countryside people are being advised to not attempt to evacuate, just hunker down in their homes, or if they next to the seaside, go to the beach. Some villages have been evacuated by helicopter, since the roads are too dangerous to attempt to travel. One significant concrete bridge has buckled and collapsed from the heat.

In 20 years of rural living I never ever saw fires this bad.

 

[tsitenha]

From what we heard in the news it is a horrendous disaster, truly hope that people are as safe as can be with no loss of life.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Just caught this on the BBC, terrible news. I read your posts about Yarloop, such a loss. I hope everyone is safe.

 

[santaman2000]

Praying for their safety.

 

[mrcharly]

Two dead. That's dreadful, but it has to be put in the context of this fire having burnt past one town of thousands and destroying a small settlement in 7 minutes. 7 minutes to burn down over 100 houses, businesses and workshops.

 

[dewi]

Seems this one started from a lightning bolt, so its not even as if it could have been prevented by the sounds of it.

A work colleague of mine emigrated to the east coast of Australia... he's been told stories by the locals of bush fires sweeping up roads and literally killing drivers within seconds as the fires engulf their cars. Not sure I'd want to live within 100 miles of where that happened... but its literally down the road from where he is.

 

[Stevie777]

I'm not a rocket scientist but surely some sort of fire suppression system would prevent the loss of property.

I dont know the maths involved..ie, fire temps, speed, longevity etc but i'm pretty sure if i knew these things i could come up with something that would literally drown the property with water until the fire has moved on...

Think pop up Golf course type sprinkler system only in a larger scale. If i had property worth upwards of £200k i wouldn't think twice of spending £20k on a pop up fire suppression system.

What would we need...Underground Tank holding thousands of gallons, Some plumbing, pop up Sprinklers, pump, emergency back up generator, also underground...Simple.

 

[dewi]

I'm not a rocket scientist but surely some sort of fire suppression system would prevent the loss of property.

I dont know the maths involved..ie, fire temps, speed, longevity etc but i'm pretty sure if i knew these things i could come up with something that would literally drown the property with water until the fire has moved on...

Think pop up Golf course type sprinkler system only in a larger scale. If i had property worth upwards of £200k i wouldn't think twice of spending £20k on a pop up fire suppression system.

What would we need...Underground Tank holding thousands of gallons, Some plumbing, pop up Sprinklers, pump, emergency back up generator, also underground...Simple.

You'd need a lot of pipes, a lot of pumps and millions of gallons of water though Stevie.... take just one bush fire that happened in the 60s... it engulfed 1.8 million hectares of land... that's about 6 or 7 percent of the land that makes up the UK.

Once the fire takes hold, it can travel at around 13 miles an hour and with a single gust of wind, it can speed up to 50 miles an hour... a popup sprinkler isn't going to do anything to stop it.... not sure how much water you'd need, but the property would probably be as damaged by the amount of water needed as it would by the fire... just in a different way.

 

[mrcharly]

The solution would be to build fire-resistant houses and not have vegetation near the houses.
The buildings destroyed in Yarloop were old timber buildings, mostly. However even modern brick houses with steel roofs (and steel trusses) don't survive very well. The steel breaks up, the heat shatters windows, furniture inside explodes into flame.

Stevie, the radiant heat from these fires is beyond believe. Think of something that can make concrete break down. Not from direct flame, just the radiated heat.

Like Dewi said, you'd need millions of gallons of water - where is that going to come from? How are you going to supply it?

 

[Stevie777]

It's not just about sprinklers...take away the trees and other combustibles from around the property before you fit the system. What would be the point of fitting this particular system only to have your house surrounded by trees and brush and other easily combustible stuff.?...Some people are their own worst enemies at times. Forestry have been using firebreaks successfully for years But hey, People want the nice trees and the privacy.

Lets forget about the 1.8 million hectares for a moment, Your only interest should be your house and it's immediate surroundings. The underground tank would be an extra as you already have water plumbed in through the mains. This should also be utilized into the sprinkler system....

Yes you would need pipes, but not anymore than you have already running into and throughout your own property. As for pumps.? One decent sized pump would be fine. You could have the water Tank, Pump and emergency generator all housed in the same underground chamber ready to kick in when temps hit a certain degree...old technology..easily done.

If what you say is correct that the fire can travel at 13 mph then we are only talking around 5-10 mins burn time until the main threat is over. You could also add fire retardant foams into the water if required. As for the fear your house might be flooded. Burning is the better option..

Your lower insurance premiums would more than make up for the cost of fitting this system. I doubt very much insurance would cover anyone who decided to rebuild in the same area unless you had a system that would at least try and protect your property.

I believe it would work and work very well.

ps. I have some experience working for a power/jet washer company who branched out into firefighting equipment who now sell small compact fire fighting units to fire services the word over...I dont see how it cant be done....we put man on the moon...We can stop a house from burning with water.

 

[Stevie777]

The solution would be to build fire-resistant houses and not have vegetation near the houses.
The buildings destroyed in Yarloop were old timber buildings, mostly. However even modern brick houses with steel roofs (and steel trusses) don't survive very well. The steel breaks up, the heat shatters windows, furniture inside explodes into flame.

Stevie, the radiant heat from these fires is beyond believe. Think of something that can make concrete break down. Not from direct flame, just the radiated heat.

Like Dewi said, you'd need millions of gallons of water - where is that going to come from? How are you going to supply it?

As i said in my original post...I dont know the Temps, Speed or longevity of the fires...if anyone could supply the average then we would have a starting point to do the maths on how much water we need and for how long we need to keep it turned on the property.

Without the information asked for above we can only guess and i aint for branching out into wild fire property protection on guesswork...financial suicide.

 

[dewi]

Lets forget about the 1.8 million hectares for a moment, Your only interest should be your house and it's immediate surroundings. The underground tank would be an extra as you already have water plumbed in through the mains. This should also be utilized into the sprinkler system....

Thats the problem though Stevie... even if the fire is nowhere near houses, a gust of wind and it is. They try to stop the fires on open ground, but if you have a wall of fire a mile long, where do you start? Where ever you start, the fire will just keep moving... so they get ahead of the fire and douse the ground... but then a gust of wind can then change the direction of the fire. I certainly wouldn't want to be in charge of stopping a bush fire... it must be a nightmare!

Back to the houses though... the volume of water needed is largely irrelevant because douse the average house with enough water, its wrecked anyway. Foam might be a way forward, but the volumes needed across such a vast area (because you never know which way the fire will go) would cost more than rebuilding the houses.

Simplest solution would be underground fire-proof bunker boxes... when a fire breaks out, you transfer as much of your home as you can into the box, lock it up and evacuate. If the fire takes the building, it doesn't take your valuables or heirlooms... a house can be rebuilt... main thing is keeping people alive.

Edit: The travel speed of the fire is a bit misleading... it may be moving forward at 13mph, but if there is fuel for the fire to burn, it doesn't just pass over at 13mph and leave behind the fuel. It moves forward and remains in the area... so if there are a dozen timber buildings, it can be burning for hours, if not days depending on what is there. Just as you think you've put it out, the wind can change direction and in comes the fire again. It more complex than protecting a property for a fixed period... you could be fighting the fire for weeks day and night.

 

[mrcharly]

Stevie - the water supply is a problem. Where is it to come from?

We aren't talking about a country with abundant water!

As for speed, temp or longevity - that is very hard to predict. If there is a strong wind, the fire can leap miles at a time, at the speed of the wind. If you are in a wooded area (that's all of the Darling Scarp), then on hot days the oils from the trees fills the air - the fire can turn into a fuel-air fireball that travels at the speed of combustion.

Discussion about building codes is a moot point when you have thousands of existing houses.

 

[Goatboy]

Didn't the Aboriginal peoples used to set regular smaller fires to clear away undergrowth build up so that fires wouldn't take hold? Maybe encouraging this sort of behaviour on a large scale around populated areas would create jobs, wildlife and a safer environment.
On a different scale here in the UK we would create vegetation/fire breaks and also plant species like larch that would burn extra quickly so that the fire would burn out in its boundaries.
Having been in some big forests fires I know how scary it can be and how powerless you can feel.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Stevie777]

Stevie - the water supply is a problem. Where is it to come from?

.

Where do they get water from day to day.? my guess would be from a mains system somewhere. The tank only needs to be filled once.

 

[dewi]

Didn't the Aboriginal peoples used to set regular smaller fires to clear away undergrowth build up so that fires wouldn't take hold? Maybe encouraging this sort of behaviour on a large scale around populated areas would create jobs, wildlife and a safer environment.
On a different scale here in the UK we would create vegetation/fire breaks and also plant species like larch that would burn extra quickly so that the fire would burn out in its boundaries.
Having been in some big forests fires I know how scary it can be and how powerless you can feel.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

They still do it now... as do the fire services... they setup back burns to contain the fire, but as with anything... nature has a weird way of biting back. The fires can jump the back burns... again, winds and time of day.

The fires are scary in size though... they reported once that the flames were over 50ft high in places... that would be a scary place to be.

 

[dewi]

Where do they get water from day to day.? my guess would be from a mains system somewhere. The tank only needs to be filled once.

A lot of areas do get a mains supply... but if the drinking water is contaminated, what do they drink? They can use a certain amount of irrigation water and whats considered waste water... and its not as if they don't get rain in western Australia... sometimes the rain does extinguish the bush fires. Thing is, the pipelines are not everywhere... they could be 50 miles from the fire... thats going to take a very long hose pipe!

There was a huge bush fire that was extinguished by a flood caused by a hurricane... sad thing is, the hurricane caused as much damage as the fire would have... and you can't extinguish a hurricane.

 

[mrcharly]

Um - the amount of water needed to supress this scale of fire just simply isn't available. Trust me, Stevie, I lived in this area for 20 years!

 

[Stevie777]

Found this on Yarloop.. http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/wes...e/news-story/75e1f0bc1d1631ef164c950afc8aabfc

Notice the only thing to burn was the houses, the trees look fine across the road...I'm sure a sprinkler system could have saved some of these houses.

this one in particular tells it's own story...house burnt to a crisp...vegetation appears just fine.

 

[mrcharly]

Stevie can you please accept that you don't know much about this? Given that two people have died, many have lost houses and I know this area and the people intimately, I'm finding your insistance that you know the answers very annoying.

The vegetation has survived because it has evolved to be fire-resistant. Are you satisfied now?