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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>