"it is the largest fire service in Europe and the third largest urban fire service in the world, after the Tokyo Fire Department and New York City Fire Department. Its motto is "Save or Perish" (French "Sauver ou périr")."
I'm sure they have enough capacity.
Also you don't just drop water from planes above cities... this makes no sense.
> Also you don't just drop water from planes above cities... this makses no sense.
Superb way to collapse the structure, incinerate/crush the firefighters, and endanger pretty much anyone around the area, all while leaving pretty much nothing to be saved. Say nothing of anyone that might be trapped in there.
It scares me that Trump may perform his daily tasks with the same amount of thought he applied to this recommendation or when he talked about the CA fires. Can't the guy either shut up or at least think for a second before he puts something on Twitter?
I know this idea is pretty far "out there", but what if you could have an aircraft hover over the structure and spray water, rather than dump it, like a giant shower? The whole idea of using water is that, with its high heat capacity, it absorbs the heat from the fire, as well as reducing its access to oxygen, but dumping it all at once obviously is bad for anything on the ground, but maybe showering it would work? I know, it's probably not feasible.
The foam that they drop from the tankers isn't as destructive as you make it seem. Living in Southern California my house was been hit by one and while you get coated in a red foam its not going to kill you.
Well, the roof just collapsed, so I guess pick your battles. Wait for the fire to collapse it or try to save it with water.
They could also drop fire retardant on it, the foam isn't that heavy.
Hopefully they already evacuated everyone.
The news streams just started showing water being put on it, looks like the smoke is dying down, hopefully they can save it!
Yeah, it works just fine on forest fires. Not so much in urban settings.
But now that Trump has said it, a bazillion MAGAbots will be asking why they didn't use a plane, and start looking for a French conspiracy to destroy civilization or something.
What do you think is more likely? That there is not a single stream of water hitting it, or there are plenty of fire fighters at the scene you just happen not to have seen any pictures of them?
There were thousands of firefighters on scene at the World Trade Center, yet not a drop of water was ultimately poured on the fires. This may be well beyond their capability to stop.
If the WTC fire hadn't been a government conspiracy it could easily have been stopped if they just had asked a few internet forums or Twitter users, right?
Yeah, nothing like a bunch of boys online with delusions of the grandeur of their own intellect, second-guessing professionals who probably had plans for such an occurrence in place already anyway.
it could be that controlling the burn at this time means not using water. its a fair question if the observation is correct. if your observations dont match your assumptions, question your assumptions.
> I don't see a single stream of water hitting it in any of the live streams.
I saw on the live stream a couple of water jets, from aerial platforms, at the corners (probably as close as they could get with the trucks). But my guess is that most of the firefighting is happening on the ground level (some of it inside the building), out of sight from the distant cameras.
Edit: Note the absolute phrasing of the parent comment and that the spray force in a strong downpour isn't much less than what's done with firefighting planes in situations that call for that level of pressure.
This video doesn't prove your point. Not only are they actually not directly under that, but this is spread over a much larger distance than trying to target the cathedral would be. They configure their release to spread over a larger area than that.
It proves you can effectively firefight with water from a plane without even snapping tree branches, thus there'd be no reason the same pressure couldn't be used on a building.
I think I found out the reason everybody is going so crazy over this - a controversial figure from the wrong tribe apparently mentioned flying water tankers. Thus even neutral debate over the subject is wrongthink and has to be extinguished.
Why don't you step back for a moment and just admit that given the premises
-Firefighting airplanes can effectively spray in a way that doesn't harm trees
-Buildings are fine in extended substantial downpours
That it must follow
-Spraying a building with a plane in such a configuration would not collapse it
Otherwise you are the clueless one. This is absurd. At least you downvoters (who are ignoring the site guidelines) are letting me see some aesthetically pleasing upvote configurations again when it goes back up, so I appreciate it.
"The weight of the water and the intensity of the drop at low altitude could indeed weaken the structure of Notre-Dame and result in collateral damage to the buildings in the vicinity."
So, yeah, I'm gonna trust the experts on this one, not random armchair Internet quarterbacking.
I was clearly talking about the subject in general, in response to a blanket statement against water on buildings made by tomswartz07. Of course an ancient building might fare worse. Also noteworthy is that their comment said collapse would be inevitable but all this tweet says is "might weaken the structure."
It's not so much that it's an ancient building, it's that its structure is heavily compromised by the fire. It might fare better against an assault of water than lots of modern buildings. You can imagine one of those big warehouse spaces could fold up like a house of cards under an assault.
The larger point is that by the time you release high enough to not concentrate a huge amount of force from the water on the building, you're just not doing that much, not that much more than a really heavy natural downpour for a few seconds (which wouldn't be nearly enough to put out a fire this large).
And the trees aren't an apt comparison because the trees aren't taking the brunt of the water; the ground is. However, the roof of the structure would be taking the entire brunt of the falling water. Several tens of thousands of pounds times whatever speed its falling at squared equals a lot of kinetic energy.
The facts stand, as have been reiterated in the thread above:
- Firefighting airplanes can effectively spray in a way that doesn't harm trees (by releasing the 12,000+ gallons over a very large area)
- Buildings are fine in extended substantial downpours (which is significantly less water per second than an air-tanker dump)
To your thought's end:
- Spraying a building with a plane in such a configuration would not collapse it
Yes, it's possible to spray the cathedral with water in such a way that it will not collapse it, but that configuration is that very little water gets on the cathedral, and is instead spread over pretty much the entire island in the Seine.
At this point in time, however, it likely doesn't matter. Since most of the building has collapsed already, due to the fire. Like we said it would.
That's much more volume at once in any one area and much closer to the subject (so less time to dissipate) than any of the actual flying water tanker videos that have been posted.
The rain falls over an extended period of time, not all at once as one glob. Only several drops are hitting you at any given instant in the rain, so you are only subjected to minuscule amounts of force at any given instant.
The difference would be like standing in the shower for 40 minutes, versus being hit my an entire tub full of water going at the same speed all at once.
I remember during the Khan Academy controversy a few years back, an educator commented on reddit about the difficulty in teaching some kids about rates. Some kids just don't get rates. They think of speed as something like "a feeling of intensity." They just don't have an abstract, generalized understanding of "N things per unit time."
Think about that for a moment. Think about all of the potential for miscommunication.
Yes, but the water sprayed from those tankers isn't much more intense than a severe downpour plus wind. The branches aren't snapped off the trees they're sprayed on here and people are standing right inside it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87hfWatbVPY
I'm comparing strong rain to water plane spray. Maybe the output of some would be too severe, but clearly some are suitable.
They key point is "fire control" You don't want to randomly throw water on a fire, which likely won't impact the fire in itself, but destroy the things not touched by the fire.
For getting a fire down you either have to prevent it from access to oxygen or prevent spreading.
A big fire like that can't be covered completely to be cut of from oxygen.
With fire control you can however try to cool down the areas close to inflammation to prevent further spreading. Save what can be saved, like the lower walls.
It's not like planes loaded with water are standing by at the municipal fire brigade ready to go at a moment's notice. They would take hours to deploy. You typically see them used in wilderness firefighting, where fires rage for many days if not many weeks.
This is a _really_ hard fire to fight. Their first priority is going to be ensuring everyone is safe, and likely setting up interior and exterior positions where they intend to stop the fire from spreading (the areas that are already involved are a total loss, let them go and focus on saving what can be saved).
Trump gave the same advice. After being involved in projects where we had to put out some fires it annoys the hell out of me when people who never have thought about the problem give some "advice" or say "why don't you just". Even rejecting it costs energy. Sometimes it's better to just shut up when you know nothing.
I bet there are other smartasses in high position in France who also give "advice" or are asking questions and they may be more difficult to ignore. Some managers have the courage to tell these people to f... off but a lot of them don't have the spine to do so so it still may be a problem for the firefighters.
I have gone through this process last summer in my company and it's really frustrating when people spend energy on questioning everything you do instead of helping.
My current job is to basically do this professionally. Some problem arises that I have no familiarity with, and I'm tasked to listen to what the experts are saying and ask questions until a solution presents itself. Then the experts go and implement the solution.
Often times people with no expertise can offer a helpful outside perspective. This is particularly true in cases where an exception to policy or historical process is what is holding things back. Because the ignorant person is not biased by current policies and processes. Now I'm wondering if everyone at work hates me for having this role.
"I'm tasked to listen to what the experts are saying and ask questions until a solution presents itself."
This may be a role if 1) you actually listen very carefully and 2)things are not already on fire. There is a time for this but there are also times when you just have to let the experts do their thing.
One thing that always bugs me that consultants and advisers often show up during crisis and suck up a lot of energy that could be used for solving the problem. But as soon as the crisis is over and there is time to discuss ways to prevent future problems all the execs and consultants suddenly disappear.
I've been watching different feeds and looking at photos and haven't seen any evidence of firefighting of any sort. What are they doing? Just letting it burn?
Maybe we should wait to find out, there may be fireman inside making sure there are no people , evaluating the situation, I assume you need a strategy and not just spray water where you see flames.
They might be more focused in evacuating the place and making sure none of the surrounding building catch fire. Paris is a huge firetrap, you really don't want it to jump. At least it is quite isolated from the rest of the city.
Update: In the news they said that firefighters are entering the building to save as much art as possible before spraying water.
