In response to the numerous wildfires that are raging in Southern California, including the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, the authorities have taken the unusual step of collecting water from the ocean in order to assist in the fight against the flames.
According to Frank Papalia, a former captain of the New York City Fire Department and a fire safety expert at Global Security Group, saltwater can cause damage to equipment, infrastructure, and animals; nonetheless, there are situations when firemen are required to use it regardless of the potentially harmful effects.
“When someone falls down, gets hurt, possibly broke their neck or something like that, you don’t move them. [But] if there’s a fire around them, or there are chemicals around them and stuff, they’re gonna die. So you have to move them — you have no choice,” he stated.
In response to the numerous wildfires that are raging in Southern California, including the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, the authorities have taken the unusual step of collecting water from the ocean in order to assist in the fight against the flames.
According to Frank Papalia, a former captain of the New York City Fire Department and a fire safety expert at Global Security Group, saltwater can cause damage to equipment, infrastructure, and animals; nonetheless, there are situations when firemen are required to use it regardless of the potentially harmful effects.
“In this case, your city is burning to the ground, so using the saltwater is not that bad,” he stated. “The problem is they are limited to how many aircraft they can fly at one time, how far they have to go, and how much water those can hold. You couldn’t fly yesterday because of the wind.”
Existing fire hydrants do not make use of saltwater for a number of different reasons. They make use of the same pipes that are used to supply households and businesses with clean water from the tap. They do not maintain resistance to corrosion. In addition, according to Papalia, the expense of establishing a new saltwater hydrant system that is connected to ocean pumps “would be ridiculous.”
In addition, fire hydrants are dependent on pressure, which is lost whenever multiple hydrants are made available at the same time.
However, the fire trucks themselves are able to use saltwater; all they need to do is be in close proximity to it in order to obtain it, and then they must be thoroughly cleaned afterward.
“We have them at JFK,” Papalia stated about the airport in New York City. “We pump the water out of Jamaica Bay. If you’re gonna do that at the beach, how are you gonna get the firetruck into the sand?”
According to the authorities, the fires that have been raging across Southern California have claimed the lives of at least ten people, and the Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna has stated that he anticipates the number of fatalities to increase.
More than 130,000 people have been given the order to leave their houses immediately immediately.
The neighboring states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico have also dispatched firefighting resources to assist with the situation.
