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.