aircraft cabin fires used to create so much toxic gas and smoke, those that survived the initial impact died from the fumes and the smoke. fireblocking has become standard, floor path lighting, and fire detection systems in the galleys and lavs.... i encourage anyone interested in this, watch this 50 minute video from air craft investigations and air canada 797Mike Kulp wrote:Very sad, Aaron you are correct the materials that boats are made out of are made mostly from oils when they burn they give off fumes that burn, the fuel tanks heat up and push out vapors that burn when they are in a building hot gasses build up till they reach about 1600 degrees and then everything will flash at one time and create a huge fire the fire is consuming so much oxygen that it will start pulling things into the fire like canvas and fuel vapor from boats that are not yet burning. boats will burn so hot that it is hard to get enough water on the fire to cool it to stop giving off the gasses that burn, I saw that they were putting foam on the fire in the one picture which has a higher surface strength than water so it will stick better to objects you are trying to cool, problem is that not all fire cmpanys have foam or enough of foam ( expensive class b $180.00 5 gallons mixed at 3% with water ), so one company puts foam on and the others wash it off with water. big problem with big fires.
a dc-9 that caught fire in flight.... many things became standard after this.
mike, as a firefighter, you will especially find this interesting....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYjTs9-IyLc
aaron
