FLAME BUSTERS from Tiny Flying Bots to Big Data, New Technologies Hold Promise for Reducing Fire’S Awful Toll of Death and Destruction

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FLAME BUSTERS From tiny flying bots to big data, new technologies hold promise for reducing fire’s awful toll of death and destruction

BY ALLEN ABEL

8 BOSS 4 s u mm e r 2017 “fire helment icon” AlonzoDesign/DigitalVision Vectors; “building” borchee/E+/Getty Images; “large burn” d1sk/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images; “burn holes throuhgout” macrovector/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty macrovector/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images; “burn holes throuhgout” burn” d1sk/iStock/Getty Images; “large Vectors; “building” borchee/E+/Getty AlonzoDesign/DigitalVision helment icon” “fire hen the residents of the tiny • At the ramshackle Ghost Ship Every year, remorseless and W town of Bar Nunn, Wyoming, concert venue in Oakland, unpredictable, fire takes the lives not saw a cyclone of smoke barreling down California, in 2016: 36 dead. only of tens of thousands of citizens Palomino Avenue toward their houses • At a Christmas party in the of every country on Earth, but also in July 2015, they were gripped by the Chinese city of Luoyang, in 2000: hundreds of men and women who have same terror that has stricken human 309 dead. made it their life’s work to defeat it. beings for thousands of generations: • In Portugal in 2003, on the But now—2,000 years after the first the fear of fire. hottest day in at least two organized vigiles rushed with buckets of It was a Monday afternoon on a centuries: 18 dead in wildland water to the blazes of Imperial Rome— scorching summer day. Hundreds of fires whipped by a sirocco new technologies are helping to reduce acres of Natrona County grassland (oppressively warm) wind. that awful toll. already had burned when the fiery gale • In the mountains of Arizona in These innovations include pilotless turned toward town. Firefighters went 2013, at a place called Yarnell helicopters and smaller drone aircraft from door to door, alerting dozens Hill, in a fire started by lightning: that monitor structural and wild land of families that they might need to 19 firefighters from the Granite fires; autonomous vehicles that can evacuate their homes within minutes. Mountain Hotshots team burned put large quantities of water on a fire “I was the first on scene and all by to death in their portable shelters. in conditions that no human could myself,” remembers Rusty Dunham, tolerate; powerful hoses that eject a then-chief of the Bar Nunn Volunteer fire-starving mist of microscopic drops Fire Department. “I was in the truck of water; and real-time GPS, visual- trying to catch up with the fire. We spectrum and infrared displays that were just getting a handle on it when appear on a firefighter’s face shield to the wind direction changed from guide him or her through the smoke 30 mph from the south to 70 mph and confusion of a major blaze. from the west. That’s what caught Still to come—perhaps within this us off-guard.” decade—are humanoid robots that can Ten years earlier, Dunham had deploy hoses in the confined quarters of watched two Wyoming firefighters a flaming house or ship; tiny flying bots lose their lives in the collapse of a local that can seek out unconscious victims townhouse. “They were looking for on the upper stories of a burning kids who weren’t even in the structure,” home; and pilot-less aircraft capable of Dunham says. dousing a remote forest with buckets of In the 21st century, even in the water and retardants, even at midnight, wealthiest and most technologically eliminating the need for “hotshot” Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty advanced of nations, fire kills. crews to penetrate the darkness.

www.dixonva lve.co m s u mm e r 2017 4 BOSS 9 Douglas R. Clifford/ZUMApress/Newscom

Above left: Before a training exercise using a new self-contained breathing apparatus, a training chief synchronizes a firefighter’s incident control module with the district chief’s computer—allowing remote monitoring of temperatures inside structures and heart and oxygen rates of firefighters, in addition to remote signaling used to recall firefighters. Above right: Through the Congressional Fire Training program, Congressional staffers are put through exercises that firemen in training would encounter, including use of a thermal imaging device.

Evolving Advances the fire sooner, and to rescue civilians.” on the floor.” When these cameras Willette has also witnessed came out 20 years ago, he says, the cost The quest for better tools to fight fires, improvements in firefighters’ self- was $15,000 to $20,000, making them and protect firefighters, is not new. Just ask Ken Willette, segment contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). prohibitively expensive for many fire director for the National Fire Protection “Better harnesses, lighter-weight gear, departments. “Today,” he says, “they are Association in Quincy, Massachusetts. systems that allow firefighters outside less than $1,000 because the technology He started as a structural firefighter in the building to attack the fire—the has advanced so quickly.” 1974 and retired as a fire chief in 2009. impact of that technology has been Similarly, it’s not unusual to see “Within that span of time I saw an huge,” he says. firefighting teams today arrive at the evolution in the fire service,” he says. “More recently, we have been able scene of a fire with an iPad in hand. “And one of the biggest evolutions was to use thermal imaging cameras so that “We can provide information to the the impact of research that had been firefighters can see the room they’re in incident commander about the layout done for NASA in developing fabrics translated into layers of temperature. of the building and the contents that are that could give firefighters protection Those cameras also have the ability to stored in the building,” says Willette. against flame exposure. This allowed penetrate smoke to determine if there Computers also allow firefighters them to get closer to the fire, to contain is a person overcome by smoke lying to be tracked, conveying

NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN EARLY FIREFIGHTING HISTORY

Ca. 230 B.C. 6 A.D. 1672 1681 1723

Ctesibius of Alexandria Augustus, Emperor of Rome, Artist/scientist Jan van Just 15 years after the English chemist invents a pump that levies a 4 percent tax on slaves der Heyden of Holland Great Fire of London, Ambrose Godfrey can siphon water from and uses it to finance cohorts of designs a fire hose 12 men, led by Nicholas patents a fire a pond or tank and 70 to 80 men (known as vigiles) composed of 50-foot Barbon, establish the extinguisher that direct it at a fire as who are each equipped with lengths of stitched first “Insurance Office uses a cylinder of a forceful stream. a horse-drawn water tank leather. for Houses.” gunpowder to blow and pump. out fires.

10 BOSS 4 s u mm e r 2017 Casey Grant predicts that computer technology—specifically big data— will be crucial to future advances in firefighting.

CALLS BY THE NUMBERS: Statistics from one busy volunteer fire company, in Chestertown, Md., where Dixon Valve and Coupling is based.

2017 YTD: 174 2015 TOTAL: 505 2016 TOTAL: 593 2014 TOTAL: 728

For more information, go to chestertownvfc.org. Douglas Graham/Roll Call Photos/Newscom Douglas Graham/Roll

information to specialists who are not this thing that is burning? Are there firefighters show up at a fire scene, on the scene, who might know about combustible metals involved? The black [ideally] they would have access to all the hazards awaiting them, he says. boxes that are in vehicles today have that information.” As lead author of the “Road Map incredible information that is not being to Smart Firefighting,” commissioned accessed by emergency responders. We Water, Water Everywhere by the National Fire Protection want to get that data in their hands at Association, Casey Grant predicts that every fire event by making our entire One of the most fascinating innovations computer technology—specifically big built infrastructure come alive with in 21st-century firefighting involves data—will be crucial to future advances innovations. repackaging water in a different form. in firefighting. “Data is the new oil,” says Grant, “Watermist,” a technology widely used “Take the case of a vehicle fire “and the internet of things is a big part in Europe for more than 20 years, is out on a highway. That’s a relatively of it. For example, if you put a chip in beginning to gain popularity in North straightforward event,” says Grant. the elbow of a pipe, it tells you when America, says Hal Spencer, a retired “But when we arrive on scene, there it’s leaking. With this technology, you wildland and structural firefighter in are still a lot of things that we don’t can follow the lifecycle of everything Boise, Idaho, and former fire chief of know. Is the fire electrical? What is in a home or in a factory so that when the structural fire program of the U.S.

1736 1813 1852 1874

Newspaper publisher Wealthy Englishman George Two Bostonians patent Henry Parmalee, a Connecticut Benjamin Franklin helps to William Manby invents the the first street-corner piano maker, invents the first organize Philadelphia’s first modern pressurized “Electromagnetic Fire automatic indoor sprinkler system, Union Fire Company, a extinguisher, a copper cylinder Alarm Telegraph using solder to seal holes in water mutual-assistance brigade; filled with potassium for Cities.” pipes laid across the ceiling, which each member is required to carbonate and compressed air. melted during a fire to unplug the buy seven leather buckets. holes and release water.

www.dixonva lve.co m s u mm e r 2017 4 BOSS 11 a room that’s on fire with water that turns to steam and that knocks the fire down,” he says. Not only does the steam suffocate the fire, but this system also greatly reduces water damage caused by traditional sprinkler systems.

Send in the Bots In Waterboro, Maine, twin brothers Mike and Geoff Howe have spent the past decade inventing and improving a series of self-propelled, diesel- “Droplets of just powered, firefighting tractors that a few molecules of they call Thermites. “Thermite has a very low center water each are thousands of gravity,” says Mike Howe. “It is just and thousands of a little bigger than a common lawn tractor, but it puts out the equivalent times more effective at of two fire trucks of water.” Thermite putting out fires than is now in its third iteration, and the Howes have designed it to be pre- large streams of water.” deployed in large factories. The brothers

— Hal Spencer, have already sold several dozen to former fire chief of the structural Chinese manufacturers. fire program of the “Many firefighters say, ‘I don’t U.S. National Park Service want to be replaced by a robot’—but National Park our robots are not designed to replace Service. anyone,” says Mike Howe. He points to a “What it comes devastating factory fire in Texas, where down to is this: ammonium nitrate exploded and took Droplets of just a few molecules of the lives of 12 first responders. “That water each are thousands and thousands doesn’t have to happen,” he says. “We of times more effective at putting out don’t have to send 12 firefighters into a fires than large streams of water.” factory, waiting for it to explode.” He goes on to explain: “If we kick The Howe brothers’ system calls for open the door to a house, what do we Thermites to be set up throughout a The following introduce? Oxygen. And that’s what kills factory, all linked to a mobile command firefighters. All the superheated gases products center. If fire strikes, “That command at the top of those rooms flash over and system lights up all the robots and they are offered that room just ignites to temperatures of come out of their small houses and they by Dixon Fire: 1,200 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit and fight the fire,” says Howe. it’s instantaneous. The key is to lower Autonomous assistants also hold 1. Angle Hose Valves the temperatures in the building before promise for fighting wildland fires, you even go inside,” Spencer says. 2. Pressure Reducing Valves says Brad Koeckeritz, division chief, With mist, firefighters drill a hole 3. Wedge Disc Gate Valves in the wall and thrust a mist-spraying 4. Hose Racks and Reels lance in, then deliver the mist. “The aim is to maximize the surface 5. Hy drant Wrenches and area that is exposed to Adapters humidity—you fill up “Water drop” DamianPalus/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images; “fire hose” jonnysek/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty jonnysek/iStock/Getty hose” Images Plus/Getty Images; “fire DamianPalus/iStock/Getty drop” “Water 12 BOSS 4 s u mm e r 2017 FIGHTING FIRE AT SEA WITH SAFFiR

IN 2014, the U.S. Navy began working with mechanical and computer engineers at Virginia Tech and other universities to design, build and deploy a humanoid robot to attack a sailor’s worst nightmare: fire aboard a ship at sea. “With robots, not being afraid of fire is one of the big advantages,” says John Seminatore, a graduate of MIT and Virginia Tech, who worked on what the Navy called SAFFiR (Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot). What’s more, he says, “A robot may not necessarily be more fireproof than a person, but a robot can do things that a person can’t do, like not breathe. And it can see in infrared and penetrate smoke.” The researchers had good reason for designing their robot to take a human form, says Seminatore. “People asked us, ‘Why did you go humanoid? Why go into all

the extra complications of balancing and Navy/Newscom Williams/U.S. John F. movement?’ Well, you’ve got to work with The Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting robot undergoes testing aboard the Naval Research the space you’re working in, and the Navy Laboratory’s ex-USS Shadwell in Mobile, Alabama. doesn’t want to retrofit its ships. That would “The next step,” says McKenna, “is to to brace itself, and to design a knee so it can cost billions. So you have to use a humanoid improve mobility”—to equip SAFFiR to walk up and down stairs. form that can walk from room to room, step handle movements in the ship, use its hands He expects that humanoid firefighting over doorways, wear the same protective robots and tiny indoor drone aircraft could be gear as humans and carry the same hoses.” in widespread use on ships “inside of 10 Progress to date has been promising, years,” though, he says, “this will be says Dr. Thomas McKenna, program officer determined by market forces.” in the division of human and bioengineered systems at the Office of Naval Research. “SAFFiR showed that it could walk down the corridor and take the hose from one end to the other. It did a great job of putting out the fire and knowing where to point the hose. RileyCaton/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty RileyCaton/iStock/Getty www.dixonva lve.co m s u mm e r 2017 4 BOSS 13 WHAT’S IT WEIGH?

Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) also known as “bunker gear” or “turnout gear,” can weigh more than 70 pounds, depending on the tools needed for the job.

LIGHT 4 pounds HELMET 6 pounds AX 6 pounds HALLIGAN HOOK 7 pounds HALLIGAN 10 pounds BUNKER GEAR (boots, pants, coat, radio, gloves, personal hand tools) 22 pounds RESCUE ROPE 26 pounds BREATHING APPARATUS 27 pounds ROOF SAW 28 pounds FIRE EXTINGUISHER 30 pounds HOSE (empty) 110 pounds

It’s unlikely that a firefighter will bring every tool to a job. However, a few other factors need to be considered when weighing-in on what it takes to fight a fire: water-soaked turnouts, a charged hose and encountering a person who needs help being evacuated.

WHAT’S IT COST?

A full set of turnout gear runs about $3,000, not counting the SCBA, which is about $6,000.

SOURCE: Haddam Volunteer Fire Company and The New York Times

14 BOSS 4 s u mm e r 2017 CoisaX/E+/Getty Images CoisaX/E+/Getty Images Howe & Howe Technologies, Inc. Technologies, & Howe Howe

The Thermite RS2-T1 fire fighting robot comes equipped with integrated multiple HD analog video cameras and optional Infrared FLIR. The Thermite controller is held in a single hand and includes the video monitor attached on top.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), for with longer endurance that can stay the U.S. Department of the Interior. up 10 or 12 hours at a time and carry “We’re still pretty early in the infrared cameras to direct the bucket introduction of UAS,” he says. work of our helicopters.” Currently, UAS are “embedded at the In the near future, Koeckeritz crew level with firefighters on the says, “I think we’ll see multiple UAS ground as a situational awareness and deployed at a major wildfire. The big information-gathering tool … but we’re game-changer would be the ability looking [ahead] to get bigger aircraft to move beyond data gathering to an actual tactical role in which an unmanned helicopter is fighting the fire 24/7—at night, and in the early morning when the weather is cooler and the smoke settles near the ground,” conditions impossible for human firefighters to work within. In 2016, Koeckeritz and his team brought an even more futuristic weapon to the war on fire: the “optionally piloted helicopter.” Developed by the U.S. military to allow troops to avoid improvised explosive devices along the remote roads of Afghanistan, the K-Max aircraft eventually may be used to fetch, haul and

Thermite 3.0 www.dixonva lve.co m Howe & Howe Technologies, Inc. s u mm e r 2017 4 BOSS 15 FANNING THE FLAMES

A PILOT project with no pilots is adding a new dimension to the growing use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in fire control and management—not by helping to monitor or douse flames, but by igniting them. In April 2016, at A University of Nebraska-Lincoln-designed drone returns Homestead National Monument to the side of a burn area for a reload of fireballs and the chemical to make them burn. in Nebraska, a six-rotor drone University of Nebraska-Lincoln of Nebraska-Lincoln University

University of Nebraska-Lincoln of Nebraska-Lincoln University with a maximum 1-pound payload was loaded with a dozen golf-ball-sized capsules of flammable potassium permanganate and deployed to touch off a prescribed burn. The UAS, designed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was remotely guided to a swath of restored tall prairie grass, where it dropped its payload, and then returned to its takeoff point for more. Prescribed burns are key in forest and grassland ecosystem management. These fires encourage natural seed germination and clear the invasive species that can greatly reduce livestock productivity. The use of drones could eliminate the need to send human teams on foot—wielding handheld drip torches—into The drone drops a fire ball during the rugged, flaming terrain. April 22 test. “We’ve had a number of fatalities associated with prescribed

University of Nebraska-Lincoln of Nebraska-Lincoln University fires here in Nebraska the last five to six years,” says Casey McCoy, acting fire program leader for the Nebraska Forest Service. “This The drone takes off on its fifth flight of the test, surrounded stands to improve the safety of prescribed fire.” by the UNL drone team, media and firefighters. University of Nebraska-Lincoln of Nebraska-Lincoln University

4 s u mm e r 16 BOSS 2017 Images Plus/Getty CoisaX/iStock/Getty drop water and retardant on the most inaccessible zones of a wildland fire, eliminating the hazards that killed those 19 hotshots at Yarnell Hill. Of course, even with all these advances, says Koeckeritz, “We’re a long, long way from replacing anybody with an unmanned system.” Others within the industry agree. “Do not underestimate the volatility of a fire event,” warns the NFPA’s Casey

Grant. “Fires are extremely variable NASA Photo: Jim Ross and very difficult to predict. When we With smoke from the Lake Arrowhead area fires streaming in the background, NASA’s Ikhana talk about robotics, there is a whole unmanned aircraft heads out on a Southern California wildfires imaging mission. competitive effort just focused on being able to go into a situation and says Grant, “but technology Thankfully, that was the outcome climb over debris and perform certain is accelerating at a very on that scorching July day in Bar Nunn. actions—to go into a power plant and fast rate.” The powerful gale calmed, the fire was turn valves that have been damaged— In Bar Nunn, Wyoming, contained. No one was killed, no one and do so without any power lines Rusty Dunham, is excited about was injured, and everybody went home. running to the robot itself. what the future holds for firefighting. “That’s the most important thing: “It will be quite a while “Hopefully,” he says, “we can get that nobody got hurt,” says Dunham. before we can get to what we see our line-of-duty deaths down “Stuff is just stuff. You can always portrayed in science fiction,” to nothing.” rebuild stuff.”

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