- Author
- Gann, R. G.
- Title
- Fire Suppression in the Next Century.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Book or Conf
- Combustion Institute/Eastern States Section. Chemical and Physical Processes in Combustion. Proceedings. Fall Technical Meeting, 1991. October 14-16, 1991, Ithaca, NY, B/1-7 p., 1991
- Keywords
- combustion | fire suppression | water | halons | carbon dioxide | powders
- Abstract
- In an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," people of a primitive culture (not unlike our own) are trying to cook in their quarters aboard the Enterprise. In that future, food is synthesized already prepared. The starship's computer senses their fire and constructs a force field around it, starving it of oxygen. The quenching of unwanted fires predates written history. The ancients must have noticed that a downpur put out everything from a cooking fire to a forest fire. They also equated rain water to lake water. However, implementing this "technology" themselves was another matter. Water was often precious, and only later inventions such as animal skin canteens would make it possible to transport water and store it for long times. Thus was born the need for efficient suppression. As people progressed to living in clusters of wooden dwellings, they found that a fire in one could spread and destroy the entire village. Some tribes would separate their huts, but this hindered security from animals and marauders. So, in general, they just rebuilt whenever their homes were destroyed. This continuing problem reinforces our need to accelerate the future of fire suppression. Many aspects of reducing the losses from fires are beyond the realm of the combustion scientist or engineer, ranging from fire department budgets to public education. The focus of this presentation is the potential for advancement in the technology of quenching fires, leading to maximum effectiveness and minimal collateral damage.