Fire fighting with 747s

[olyclimber]

Check it out...

24,000 gallons of water....

[foraker]

The russians did it first, but with half the capacity

 

http://www.didyouknow.cd/firefighters.htm

[Dave_Schuldt]

Whith the tanker fleet grounded for saftey reasons thier going to need something this summer.

[foraker]

The Russians, via the Canadians, offered us the use of their tankers for the California fires but apparently the FS declined.

[Dru]

i hear 747's also work good for urban demolition

 

[iain]

bah, that's no 747

[Blake]

i hear 747's also work good for urban demolition

 

 

 

looks pretty edited to me.

[cj001f]

I prefer Airborne Demolition:

[iain]

that looks edited

[cj001f]

that looks edited

That's because first flight isn't till next year.

[iain]

I was just poking fun at "Blake" for giving his "that looks edited" disapproval to an obviously-edited photo above.

[Dru]

blake's a real smart guy

[max]

At least for wildland fire applications, I think the use is pretty limited. THey aren't going to work in anything remotely hilly, and the only flat stuff that could really use 24k gallons is flat, worthless sage and grass not worth the cost of the application. But I bet it'd be pretty fucking cool to call in and watch!

[foraker]

That's why the sputnik's use them on siberian forest fires.

[barkernews]

It depends on how low and slow they can fly the things. It sounds like the FAA may do a 180 and approve those C-130s and P-3s for airdrops again. Let's hope so.

A P-3 saved a big part of Turkey Rock outside of Denver during the Hayman Fire. Many other parts of that area are still closed. Those are our climbing areas that'll go up in flames without some sort of fire management.

On the other hand... some of those airplanes are literally 60 years old and still dropping retardant.

Thats nuts.

[catbirdseat]

Usually water or retardant are dropped on or near an active fire. Can retardant be applied proactively to create a fire break? In other words, if you are in the middle of extreme fire weather and you want to protect against a fire that may or may not occur, can you coat trees by aerial treatment with fire retardant chemicals that will not hurt the trees?

[Double_E]

Is the P3 that plane that has a scoop/door just under the nose which allows it to skim a lake or other waterbody and pick up 1000s of gallons? saw that on some teevee documentary once.. pretty cool technique. think it might've even been Lake Wenatchee where the footage was from.

[barkernews]

Usually water or retardant are dropped on or near an active fire. Can retardant be applied proactively to create a fire break?

Kind of...

Firefighters will drop retardant in lines near active fires to create fire breaks or direct the fire in a certain direction. I suppose they could do it proactively... but if you multiply the cost of the retardant times the millions of acres you'd have to cover just to create proactive firebreaks... it'd cost more money than a day's worth of bombs in Iraq. and we could have that.

[olyclimber]

That is a bizzare concept...coating forests with chemicals to avoid a possible fire.

[catbirdseat]

That is a bizzare concept...coating forests with chemicals to avoid a possible fire.

The active ingredient is ammonium phosphate which is a fertilizer and is also the same chemical used in household fire extinguishers. If a colorant is needed, they add iron oxide, which is basically red ochre. When it rains, the ammonium phosphate washes off and fertilizes the soil.

[snoboy]

I heard something last year after our big fire season about how there were also high levels of arsenic in the retardent chemicals, and it was all gonna wash into the streams and stuff.

[lummox]

I heard something last year after our big fire season about how there were also high levels of arsenic in the retardent chemicals, and it was all gonna wash into the streams and stuff.

arsenic aint no big thang. just ask gw.

[Dru]

Speaking of things washing into things around 30, 000 tonnes of dirt washed into downtown Kelowna in a post-fire Mudslide in October

[catbirdseat]

I heard something last year after our big fire season about how there were also high levels of arsenic in the retardent chemicals, and it was all gonna wash into the streams and stuff.

I tried to google that one up and couldn't find anything. There shouldn't be any arsenic in fire retardant. I do know that arsenic and cadmium has been found in iron supplements for lawns because they used old mine tailings as the source for the iron.

[snoboy]

Perhaps it is something like that (arsenic in iron in retardant.)

 

They put all kinds of crap in fertilizers.