** Reply to message from Legatus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Tue, 6 May 2008 11:27:05 -0500
> You know air water drops as a means of fire suppression is not generally > effective. They are often used simply as a very expensive (sometimes at the > cost of pilots life) PR method. People think that is what they should see, > so that is what they are given. Not to say that they don't have a place, > just that most of the time, they are for show, while all the real > firefighting still happens on the ground. I don't know about the "for show" part but it's pretty obvious that when the winds pickup and the fire fronts expand, it becomes a spot protection fight and cleanup once the winds subside. If they are so much for show, are all those involved in air support so naive to be risking their lives for show? Can they all be that gullible to be fooled into thinking they are doing something helpful when it is just a marketing game? Just trying to get a handle on this. I do know there are some pretty strange reactions which cause me to question the intelligence behind some decisions. For instance, I also remember two helo's spending over an hour on one burning home in Julian where they just kept dropping water on the roof of the home. The water shed off the roof as should be expected from a functional roof. Only when the fire gutted the inner structures and the roof collapsed, did water drops knock down any flames. Over an hour of wasted time for two helo's when the last 15 minutes of water drops did the job. If indeed the water drops are more show than go, then we are wasting billions on these fire fighting mechanisms and it is wide spread. After all, air drop equipment gets called in from all over the state and country from/to many different firefighting organizations. That's one heck of a conspiracy theory but I am open to data listing the lack of effectiveness. Doug -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
