The survival/griddown firefighting gear, tips, and tricks thread

[Crosscut]

Do we already have a thread for this?  If so maybe a mod would be kind enough to just merge this into it.

I'm a regular Commander Zero reader, and he posted a note on refillable pressurized water fire extinguishers yesterday that is worth the read (including the comments):  http://www.commanderzero.com/?p=8891

I don't see much advantage, if any, of these for normal grid up/non-ZPAW times, but one huge advantage grid down is that they're refillable with only an air compressor required.  Probably not feasible to refill them while fighting the same fire of course, and only good for class A ones, but the standard dry chemical or CO2 extinguishers are little more than a door stop once used, and each one used is one less that you have if you can't replace or refill it.  Considering the risk of home and brush fires when people (maybe our neighbors?) start using alternate forms of cooking and home heating, candles for light, burning their trash in the yard, etc, a couple of these refillable ones could come in real handy.

Another interesting one from Mr. Zero on the firefighting topic:  http://www.commanderzero.com/?p=5216
I planned for something similar when we built our home by having an outdoor garden spigot installed inside our attached garage.  The attached 25' of garden hose will reach inside the house pretty far, helps ensure I keep the fire from getting behind me if I decide to go back in to try fighting it, and worst case the hose can be followed back to find the exit if blinded in a smoke filled room.  Not that going back into a burning house is my plan, but it's at least an option if it appears safe to do so, and during construction the extra spigot was only a minor expense.

Something else I've thought might be very helpful is a pressurized backpack garden sprayer, like this.  Not so much for fighting an indoor fire or even the source of a fire, but to extinguish or at least slow it's spread across dry lawn or through the underbrush until the 'bucket brigade' gets organized.  I have one of the smaller 1-gallon sprayers, but a 4 gallon one would be much more effective I think, and that it can be refilled from a bucket or hand pump, and repressurized on-the-go, are big advantages offgrid/griddown.  Locally in my AO anyway no one waters their lawn and there's at least a couple times a year where the lawns and underbrush gets positively "crunchy" from lack of rain and will light at the merest spark.  I've seen and fought these types of fires a few times, the spreading edge of the fire through short/dry grass isn't much of a risk to people trying to extinguish it (sliding a shovel along the edge of the fire/fuel line in front of you while you walk actually works fairly well, but it reignites easily and often), but it spreads quickly - and if it finds ladder fuel to get into the trees, lookout.  Just this small quantity of water and the sprayer, with a little bit of detergent added, could make a huge difference in keeping it from reigniting behind you as you walk the fire line extinguishing it. 

And last, for now anyway , something that I mentioned previously in a different thread was how much more effective it is when two people with extinguishers fight a fire together.  I saw this demonstrated in the Navy putting out a flammable liquid (kero, I think) fire in a parking lot.  The fuel was contained in a 4' or so diameter short metal pan, when lit the flames reached 10-12' high.  First a single fireman showing 'how to', and relighting it to show how effective different type extinguisher types were at extinguishing it (dry chem rocks and was saved for the last, it was difficult to relight it with dry chem residue on the kero/oil).  But most impressively I thought was how fast two fireman working in tandem ("attacking it" might be a better description) with two extinguishers where able to put it out.  Just a guesstimate, but I'd say it doesn't just double the size of a fire that could be fought effectively with an extinguisher, but more like quadruples it.  The Mrs and I mock practiced this a few times, and we remind each other of the plan whenever the topic of firefighting comes up.

[sheddi]

Good topic idea, thank you!

A couple (OK, maybe more than a couple) of years ago the firefighters here went on strike, odd days (one or two a week) for a month or so. Our local crew would almost certainly have turned out to a house fire but I made sure to have the garden hose hooked up and ready to go. It might not have made much on an impact but I slept happier knowing that I'd made some sort of preparations.

[Raptor]

Excellent topic.

Fire is a real risk in many places.

On my farm I am surrounded by pine trees which drop pine needles and pine cones both of which burn like incendiary devices. As a result I have taken some basic precautions to have hoses and irrigation pipe already laid out to access areas in case of a fire.

The closest fire brigade is about 20 miles away so we try to plan accordingly.