Use of Water
Often, the main way to extinguish a fire is to spray with water. The water has two roles:
- in contact with the fire, it vaporizes, and this vapour displaces the oxygen (the volume of water vapour is 1,700 times greater than liquid water, at 1,000°F (540°C) this expansion is over 4,000 times); leaving the fire with insufficient combustive agent to continue, and it dies out.
- the vaporization of water absorbs the heat; it cools the smoke, air, walls, objects in the room, etc., that could act as further fuel, and thus prevents one of the means that fires grow, which is by "jumping" to nearby heat/fuel sources to start new fires, which then combine.
The extinguishment is thus a combination of "asphyxia" and cooling. The flame itself is suppressed by asphyxia, but the cooling is the most important element to master a fire in a closed area.
Water may be accessed from a pressurized fire hydrant, pumped from water sources such as lakes or rivers, delivered by tanker truck, or dropped from aircraft tankers in fighting forest fires.
Read more about this topic: Fire Fighting
Famous quotes containing the word water:
“Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)