Not comfortable putting this in the CA wildfire thread

January 14, 2025, 10:49 AM

During my career as a fire Captain of a coastal community I have opted on multiple occasions to draft sea water for various fires. While it’s not optimal it certainly is a viable option in an emergency….and the Cali fires certainly qualify! We have used floating pumps and/or a fire boat as well as fire apparatus to boost pressure depending on distances needed. Any pump/apparatus that we’ve used pumping sea water gets flushed after the incident with copious amounts of fresh water after. Sure, preventative maintenance schedule for those pumps may get bumped up a little sooner mostly to inspect the impellers but all the valves are poly and not susceptible to degradation from sea water. Any of the pumps/apparatus that I have used with salt water are still in service today….I retired 2 1/2 years ago.
Funny story…..we had a condo fire ripping through several units about 1/4 mile from the marina where our fire boat was docked….we drafted out of the bay sending sea water up the street in LDH (4inch Large Diameter Hose) to the fire. The nozzle guys had small shrimp in their hose streams as the fought the blaze!

January 14, 2025, 11:00 AM

LS1 GTO

quote:
Originally posted by cgode:
During my career as a fire Captain of a coastal community I have opted on multiple occasions to draft sea water for various fires. While it’s not optimal it certainly is a viable option in an emergency….and the Cali fires certainly qualify! We have used floating pumps and/or a fire boat as well as fire apparatus to boost pressure depending on distances needed. Any pump/apparatus that we’ve used pumping sea water gets flushed after the incident with copious amounts of fresh water after. Sure, preventative maintenance schedule for those pumps may get bumped up a little sooner mostly to inspect the impellers but all the valves are poly and not susceptible to degradation from sea water. Any of the pumps/apparatus that I have used with salt water are still in service today….I retired 2 1/2 years ago.
Funny story…..we had a condo fire ripping through several units about 1/4 mile from the marina where our fire boat was docked….we drafted out of the bay sending sea water up the street in LDH (4inch Large Diameter Hose) to the fire. The nozzle guys had small shrimp in their hose streams as the fought the blaze!

in this situation; because of the surf, pumps would need to be floated and manned about 300-400 yards from shore, all smoke and flames would be into the firefighters' face and fighting while on sand with the fire and structures at a higher elevation.

The scooping aircraft might have worked but I do not know what the sea state was nor do I now the parameters of water's surface to allow scooping of the sea water.

January 14, 2025, 11:05 AM

LS1 GTO

On the plus side of all this - the new homes built will have a pretty extensive defensible radius around them.

January 14, 2025, 11:59 AM

corsair

quote:
Originally posted by LS1 GTO:

in this situation; because of the surf, pumps would need to be floated and manned about 300-400 yards from shore, all smoke and flames would be into the firefighters' face and fighting while on sand with the fire and structures at a higher elevation.

The scooping aircraft might have worked but I do not know what the sea state was nor do I now the parameters of water's surface to allow scooping of the sea water.

I was going to add but, you got it.
Besides the obvious being there's zero harbor or, protected area as its just open ocean and rolling waves on that beach, the topography and the necessary apparatus' needed to pump then push all that water would've been daunting. Not to mention, the fire was moving too fast due to the winds to have made such complex pump operation valuable.

Having fireboats involved with shoreside pumping operations reminds me of the '89 quake in San Francisco. The Marina District had a number of building collapses and the resulting fires was threatening the entire area. The main hydrant lines were out, the auxiliary system didn't have enough pressure and additional building collapses ended up blocking the routing of hoses from other sources. SFFD brought their fireboat into the small boat harbor 4 blocks away during low tide, ran 5000ft of hose and pumped seawater for 15+ continuous hours to halt the fires.

January 14, 2025, 12:35 PM

LS1 GTO

quote:
Originally posted by corsair:
quote:
Originally posted by LS1 GTO:

in this situation; because of the surf, pumps would need to be floated and manned about 300-400 yards from shore, all smoke and flames would be into the firefighters' face and fighting while on sand with the fire and structures at a higher elevation.

The scooping aircraft might have worked but I do not know what the sea state was nor do I now the parameters of water's surface to allow scooping of the sea water.

I was going to add but, you got it.
Besides the obvious being there's zero harbor or, protected area as its just open ocean and rolling waves on that beach, the topography and the necessary apparatus' needed to pump then push all that water would've been daunting. Not to mention, the fire was moving too fast due to the winds to have made such complex pump operation valuable.

Having fireboats involved with shoreside pumping operations reminds me of the '89 quake in San Francisco. The Marina District had a number of building collapses and the resulting fires was threatening the entire area. The main hydrant lines were out, the auxiliary system didn't have enough pressure and additional building collapses ended up blocking the routing of hoses from other sources. SFFD brought their fireboat into the small boat harbor 4 blocks away during low tide, ran 5000ft of hose and pumped seawater for 15+ continuous hours to halt the fires.

Yup - and all this being initiated after sunset and in an 80 mph+ off-shore wind.

Water-bound firefighting boats would have been the similar 300-400 yards offshore and trying to spray the first that distance into the 80 mph headwind.

The scenario did not make the ocean a feasible water source.

Also, when you hear about "rich" homeowners trying to fence off the beach and post private security so the peasants stay away and off the homeowner's beach - this is the area (or at least one of them) If you try to run/jog/walk up and down the beach at high tide - some of those homeowners would try to intimidate you to "get off my beach."

January 14, 2025, 12:59 PM

nhracecraft

quote:
Originally posted by TMats:
quote:
Originally posted by nhracecraft:
quote:
Originally posted by Gustofer:
quote:
Originally posted by TMats:
I understand that that’s been discussed and rejected out of hand. The salt would be damaging to the plants that are burned up along with the homes embedded within the chamise veg type.

I’d imagine the pumps wouldn’t fare too well with the salinity either.

All BullShit arguments...Nothing wrong with using using seawater/saltwater to fight fires! It's actually done elsewhere, ALL THE TIME...Nothing else matters if they don't extinguish the fires!

This guy knows things...

I hope it was clear that I was being sarcastic.

Yeah, you were fairly clear (though I did read it a couple of times initially before I had posted just to be sure), however employing the wink/sarcasm/wise-ass emoticon would left zero doubts!

Regardless, just wanted to 'extinguish' any and all arguments (doubt?) on the subject. I have seen that video from Sal a couple of days ago, which confirmed a few things that didn't make any sense, like how a city located on the ocean had no water to fight the wildfires. That there were actually arguments being made (in the news/media, and perhaps even within the CA gov't!) against using seawater to extinguish the fires was simply retarded, and needed to be called out as such!

January 14, 2025, 04:26 PM

wrightd

quote:
Originally posted by cgode:
During my career as a fire Captain of a coastal community I have opted on multiple occasions to draft sea water for various fires. While it’s not optimal it certainly is a viable option in an emergency….and the Cali fires certainly qualify! We have used floating pumps and/or a fire boat as well as fire apparatus to boost pressure depending on distances needed. Any pump/apparatus that we’ve used pumping sea water gets flushed after the incident with copious amounts of fresh water after. Sure, preventative maintenance schedule for those pumps may get bumped up a little sooner mostly to inspect the impellers but all the valves are poly and not susceptible to degradation from sea water. Any of the pumps/apparatus that I have used with salt water are still in service today….I retired 2 1/2 years ago.
Funny story…..we had a condo fire ripping through several units about 1/4 mile from the marina where our fire boat was docked….we drafted out of the bay sending sea water up the street in LDH (4inch Large Diameter Hose) to the fire. The nozzle guys had small shrimp in their hose streams as the fought the blaze!

Sea Monkeys to the rescue!