FIRE! - Crash Test Boat video

snooks

snooks

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Chris and the Yachting Monthly team have been at is again, this time they set fire to the Crash Test Boat in a safe controlled manner to show you how to deal with fire on board.

What happens when you use a dry powder extinguisher inside a boat?

Watch the video and see...or don't see, as the case may be :D



Next month is the big one...Hold on to your Tilley hats, it's the Gas explosion!
 
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Seen the explosion, on Beeb news, South today. Trust you are going to clear up after you:p

V impressive, especially when it wouldn't go bang the first time.
 
Toast :)

Having a British Built boat it came as no surprise to me that YM were starting boat fires with toast-bread.. :D
Otherwise a very interesting video! Thanks.
 
Another very instructive video.

Tomorrow I'm going to replace my 3 powder extinguishers with aff, have only let powder off outside didn't realise how much it " clouds" the situation.
 
Dry powder

Excellent as usual, thanks.

I was a little surprised Chris was wearing his very nice but distinctly imflammable looking jacket ?!

If I could just mention something; had a galley fire years ago, when the flexible hose to the cooker fractured - it was the metal bound 'armoured' type hose, I think / hope that stuff is illegal now, but if you have that, bin it pronto !

I'd put the kettle on, turned to the chart table opposite, looked back and there was a fairly impressive jet of flame shooting straight up at the woodwork & curtains.

The second word I yelled to chum in cockpit was 'fire' ! ' Followed of course by 'turn the ****** gas off !' - know about the theory of the flame going back to the bottle, but it seemed a definite thing to do.

I'd grabbed a dry powder extinguisher which worked very well.

The extra point I'd like to make is that the dry powder proved very corrosive and pitted the woodwork, ( I certainly wouldn't fancy breathing it ) so while it's not exactly a priority, get it cleaned off asap.

When this happened we were off the Eddystone in a wintery F6, with no liferaft; we both felt very vulnerable indeed right then, if it had taken hold we'd have died for sure.
 
Vara said:
Another very instructive video.
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Yep! People have been saying on here for ages "dry powder fills the cabin", but there's nothing like seeing it on video.

Vara said:
Tomorrow I'm going to replace my 3 powder extinguishers with aff
Click to expand...

I've always had an AFF engine extinguisher, I bought another AFF recently to replace the main powder one in the cabin but haven't got round to fitting it. After seeing that, I think I'm going to move the job up the list, and also keep an eye out for something to replace the smaller powder one I have.

Pete
 
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I bought large office units the size of the ones used by the fireman in the video. Having tried once to put out a fire with one of the small marine units I realised how hopeless they are on anything except a very early stage small fire.

Most large cockpit lockers could contain a large office type extinguisher and I'd rather be fighting it from out there.
 
Why does CO2 not come into the equation, is it not suitable for using on a boat?
I have 2 office sized CO2 on board but am now wondering if I am carrying unwanted baggage.
I am aware of the personal dangers of using CO2 in an enclosed place, but I would have thought holding breath, blasting fire and leaving would be sufficient.
Some advice or consrtuctive criticism on this is welcome.
C_W
 
Clyde_Wanderer said:
Why does CO2 not come into the equation, is it not suitable for using on a boat?
I have 2 office sized CO2 on board but am now wondering if I am carrying unwanted baggage.
I am aware of the personal dangers of using CO2 in an enclosed place, but I would have thought holding breath, blasting fire and leaving would be sufficient.
Some advice or consrtuctive criticism on this is welcome.
C_W
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Problem is, CO2 is heavier than air. So, once it is in a boat, it is going to take a long time to diffuse out again. And there would be the danger of low lying "pockets" remaining - say at about bunk level?

I don't know what it's called, but the best extinguisher I saw on my fire training, some years ago, was a sort of water spray system. Very effective on a wide variety of fire types.
 
I've also heard that CO2 is not good for engine fires because if you spray it into the engine space it will quickly get sucked through the engine and blown out the exhaust so the compartment is never properly filled with the gas. Although the last time I posted that, someone pointed out that an engine fed on CO2 is pretty swiftly going to stop running, so it may all be ballcocks :D

Pete
 
Very good very informative but I thought the pan fire was a bit tame-make it realistic next time I suppose the gas explosion will do that!!!!!!!
 
mocruising said:
Very good very informative but I thought the pan fire was a bit tame-make it realistic next time I suppose the gas explosion will do that!!!!!!!
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In the case of fire, tame is good! :D

We would have liked the usual detritus one finds around the galley, tea towels, cardboard, kitchen roll, olive oil etc. But fire is dangerous, Martin and his team weren't going to take the risk of anything going wrong, he was serious when he said he would sink the boat to put the fire out.

What you don't see in the video, but will have to read about, is the engine fire that got out of hand and took three professional firefighters, with extinguishers and a fire hose, over 10 minutes to put out.

That was far from tame
 
There are three aspects of fire that you have to take into account when fighting it

fuel that is actually burning
oxygen that is feeding the fire
heat that is ready to re-ignite a fire.

if you can cut out the highly combustible from the fire (e.g. switch off the gas, isolate the diesel etc), then it is much easier to deal with the fire.

If you can cut of the air, you maybe able to stop the fire - but some fuels when hot enough will also provide their own oxygen as a bi-product of the change from solid to gas.

if you do not cool the area, it will re-ignite / which is why firemen will continue to patrol a house after a fire.

CO2 will obviously cool and also cut of the air, but the average boat extinguisher does not really have the capacity to deal with anything other than a really small blaze. CO2 is great in high power electric fires.

dry powder allows a much larger cut of from air, but does not cool as well as co2. Nevertheless it is really good in boat fires as it does not cause flooding.

Water can cool, but is not very good if the fuel floats on top of it!

Old fashioned foam came from an animal by-product. It was an excellent isolator from air, and cooling, but needed enormous quantities to build any height, so was poor at dealing with fires above ground level.

high expansion foam attempted to solve the problem of foam operating at height, and was the only reason that HMS BRISTOL was saved from a massive fire in the early 80s. It still had some problems at getting to the really high levels.

AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam) is a means of turning normal gas/water extinguishers into a multi-purpose highly capable fire fighting tool. I have successfully fought really hot diesel fuelled fires with a small team, just using 2 gallon AFFF extinguishers. It creates a foam which can be sprayed where needed, thus cooling the area, and will form a film over the area it is sprayed, cutting it off from air. I reckon there would be a good marine market for 2 or 4 litre AFFF extinguishers.
 
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