fire extinguisher
Having watched the somewhat inept marshall attempting to put out Kimi's fire yesterday I question if the best medium is being used to put out the fires particularly dry chemical which leaves an ungodly mess to clean up a car coated with it. Wouldn't CO2 or some of the gaseous mediums work well enough without the mess? As expensive and delicate as the cars are surely F1 could afford to make sure the best is used at the tracks and hopefully with more than sufficient training on how to use them.
The trouble with something gaseous is that you have parts in an F1 car that are hotter than the ignition temperature of the fuel and oil in the car. Gases just disappear and if they haven't cooled the hot bits enough, the fire will just start up again.Originally Posted by Jerry Kehoe
Dry chemicals make a mess. They stick on everything....
...and that's a good thing.
CO2 bottles are quite good at extinguishing oil and grease fires, as they not only displace the oxygen, but they also cool the area (which is obvious to anyone who has ever had a CO2 nozzle sprayed under the bathroom stall while sitting on the can. Or maybe that was just our station...).
The problem is you have to be within 3-10 feet to be effective, and being a gas it is prone to be blown away from the fire. They also tend to be larger in size than dry chem for the same power, thus exacerbating the problem of carrying to a fire.
However, there are little CO2 bottles that are great to have in the kitchen, they leave no mess behind.
Agents/gases that displace the oxygen are great until the oxygen re-enters the area. Outdoors is a completely different animal than a server/electrical room inside a building.
Fires are going to reignite if there is a still a fuel source, heat source and oxygenating agent....it's relatively small percentage but the fuels they utilize also have their own oxygenating agent.
Perhaps Aqueous Foam like they use at airports when planes erupt in flames ? Thankfully, Grojean saved himself with the help of tha halo equipped carbon tub. "Safety" did nothing but watch... They simply weren't properly attired nor trained. Thankfully, our local LOL safety crew is heavily layered in serious protective gear, well trained & courageous !!!
"An analog man living in a digital world"
I sometimes work as a pit marshall for pro events at Laguna Seca. We are in our nomex and helmets.
IMSA and other sports car events we have 20# dry chemical bottles plus the charged water fire hoses on reels. We are ready to go over the wall if there is a fire.
IndyCar we carry pressurized extinguishers filled with water since the cars are fueled with ethanol. There are always dry chem bottles on the pit wall to back us up. The charged hoses on the reels are also behind us.
Yes, we train at our fire school every year.
“Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague wish for something salty.” -Peter Egan
Thank you Dan.
Yes, the AFFF systems are effective but it takes a whole lot of foam. That little 4L bottle in your car isn't going to extinguish and keep extinguished a very large fuel spill at all.
Maybe ya'll could tow one of these behind your race car
https://www.chemguard.com/fire-suppr...it/cmfc-1.aspx
Looking into a replacement Fire System myself at the moment. The Novec 1230 Systems are worth looking into. Nearly twice the price of an AFFF Fire system but you get what you pay for.
http://www.msrg.com.au/index.php/com...ctrical-system
While you are shopping systems/agents you might want to take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of the various agents.
https://sprinklerage.com/fire-suppre...ent-selection/
Even if AFFF was twice the price of Novec 1230, AFFF would be my choice for a race car application. I want the fire out and don't care much about cleanup if it does it has done its job.
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