[ExI] glass fire

[spike at rainier66.com]

OK so. California is burning, again.  I have friends in Angwin CA, who may
be coming down to stay with me for a few days.

There may be things I just don't understand about how wildfire works, but it
sure seems to me that one could install an underground reservoir with a few
thousand gallons of water and a simple gasoline powered pump.  Water is
nearly incompressible, so it doesn't take very much at all to pressurize it
to 5 or 10 atm.  With a converging nozzle, you have a lot of range.

Water is remarkably effective in stopping fire: a little goes a long ways
really.  It seems like high-value structures, such as historic wooden homes
and wineries and stuff could be saved by putting the right roofs on them and
keeping them wet during the event.  Pumps could be automated, triggered by
heat sensors.

Converging nozzles that operate under high pressure could fire a stream of
water a good distance.  An alpha theta two-axis actuator could ire bursts at
hotspots on a roof.  Such things as that look to me like they could protect
valuables stuff from burning, even as the forest around it does burn.

This sounds like a good automation controls problem: it would use some
fairly straightforward software, a feedback system of sorts, possibly a
shoot-look-shoot system, since water is cheap enough to use as much as you
need.  A lotta places up there in wine country have pools, or possibly even
hot tubs would help.

spike

 

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