From: ce11son@yahoo.ca
On Wed, 21 May 2014 17:14:34 -0500, Larry Sheldon
wrote:
>On 5/21/2014 3:21 PM, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>> On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 1:32:36 PM UTC-4, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>>
>>> I've never heard of sprinklers actually stopping a fire, but I
>>> lived in a few such places and had to evacuate several times per
>>> year because some idiot used their sprinkler for a coat hanger and
>>> broke it open, which triggered the building fire alarm.
>>
>> There was a bad fire in a Phila office building. Some floors had
>> sprinklers, and when the fire reached such a floor, it was
>> extinguished.
>>
>> As I understand it, sprinklers are very effective, but also very
>> costly to install.
>>
>> Since sprinkler heads are on the ceiling, aren't they, how does one
>> use it as a coat hook? Sprinkler heads have been around for ages, I
>> would figure everyone knows what the heck they are and would avoid
>> touching one.
>
>Seems easy is buildings with exposed piping in an eight-foot high room.
> And there is no lower limit to stupid.
>
>> An old computer room had Halon fire suppression, but that seemed to
>> be overly sensitive and the alarm kept going off. There was a short
>> delay to enable pepole to stop the alarm and prevent dumping, but
>> from time to time the Halon dumped. (I don't know what happened to
>> breathable air in the room in such circumstances, though employees
>> were told not to be in the room during a Halon dump.)
>
>The air is replaced by Halon.
>
>>> I know diesel is close to non-flammable (you can actually use it to
>>> put _out_ a fire), but gasoline and kerosene are highly flammable;
>>> since crude oil contains all of those, though, what is the
>>> resulting risk level?
>
>I would like to poke a hole in that
>diesel-can-be-used-to-extigguish-a-fire nonsense.
>
>My daughter drives a big truck (or did)--she was in a sideswiping
>accident (details of which will never be known for sure) but what is
>known is that her truck (with a fuel tank containing diesel) rubbed
>along the side of a stopped truck (with a fuel tank containing diesel)
>and by the time her truck came to rest her truck was fully engulfed in
>flame and (thanks to an unidentified Good Samaritan) she escaped with
>the clothing she had on.
>
That will fairly certainly have been caused by the production of a
spray or mist (as literally added fuel to the fire in the 1999
Ladbroke Grove train crash in West London). Causing spray/mist/dust
can have radical effects on various things (e.g. flour) which for most
general purposes are not inflammable. Putting out a fire with diesel
depends on flooding/immersing, probably comparable to smothering small
fires with various things which don't get the chance to catch fire
themselves as long as you take away the oxygen quick enough.
>She was driving the "bacon" truck--you can see from the shot of the back
>of the "biscuit" (flour, actually) truck tht the "rear-ended" is total
>bullshit.
>
>http://www.abc57.com/news/local/Crash-causes-truck-fire-on-Indi
na-Toll-Road-162780086.html?m=y&smobile=y
>
Bacon sandwiches at the television studios for the next week ?
That reminds me of the time that a lorry loaded with cans of beer
overturned on the roundabout beside my brother's school some years
ago. Even a couple of police vans turned up to remove some of it to
"safe storage".
>
>>
>> The previously mentioned Trains Magazine article on oil tank trains
>> discusses the various oils and their associated risks. One problem
>> is that the Bakun crude oil has more violatile content in it (better
>> explained in the article than I can).
>>
>> As I understand it, fires or other breaches from tank cars are
>> extremely rare; the trains are generally durable to withstand
>> mishaps. There is an effort to utilize a newer more secure tank car
>> design (again, explained better in the article.)
>>
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