Tunnel Ventilation
At 9:45 a.m. the tunnel ventilation system was turned to full extract and full supply in the zone of the fire (zone S4). The supply of air through the duct under the roadway enabled firefighters to work without masks (by taking breaths from the air coming through the supply flues at curb level). The extract duct above the roadway captured some of the smoke and when the false ceiling at the site of the fire collapsed, a hole formed between the road tunnel and the extract ventilation duct: this hole dramatically improved the capture of smoke at the main fire site, though it reduced smoke capture at the second fire site to practically nothing.
Two of the extract fans in the New Jersey River vent shaft failed due to the heat of the fire (the shaft was approximately 300 feet (100 m) west of the fire, and was apparently drawing air at 1000 °F / 540 °C). The third fan was kept in working order by cooling it with a water spray.
Read more about this topic: Holland Tunnel Fire
Famous quotes containing the word tunnel:
“The only way to find out anything about what kinds of lives people led in any given period is to tunnel into their records and to let them speak for themselves.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)