It's a recipe for disaster to blow air in or smoke out of the engine compartment to fight the fire. Either way, unless drawing a vacuum, you're adding air to the fire. Add CO2,PKP, DRY CHEM, or water.
The engine compartments on the average boat just aren't that big. Use the access ports or, if there aren't any, open the door, use up all your extinguishers and keep a charged water hose handy to use if necessary. Firefighters ventilate first because it drives smoke up and out. Ventilating also feeds the fire with oxygen rich air - the smoke changes for dark, billowing, pumping smoke to white fast moving smoke and relatively good visibility near the fire. They are fighting a fire in a building for crying out loud, not a boat. Different scenario completely. Waste time ventilating an engine compartment fire on a boat and you're unnecessarily increasing the size of the fire. CT 30°24'43.07"N 88°34'1.90"W -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Arild Jensen Sent: Wednesday, 01 October 2008 19:00 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Liveaboard] fire fighting. ( was Reliablity) ahmet erkan wrote: > 5. We must remove the smoke and replace it with air. > 6. We blow cool air into the compartment because if we suck the hot > air we might melt down the fan or the duct. > > Norm might be on the right path. I will wait for the explanation. > REPLY Good points! However I am still concerned about pushing the smoke into the boat's interior. Hence the question of extraction rather than in-feed of air. A number of fans blowers and such are designed for ignition proof applications. these use metal blades and shafts plus metal ducting. The vulnerable motor itself is mounted outside the duct path so heated air ( or flammable fumes) are not in contact with the motor or any sparks. Presumably at least one hatch is open to the vessel interior to enable a person to enter the engine room compartment and a blower pushing fresh air into th eE/R would also push smoke through this access opening. If no other opening was available then the fan would simply pressurize the compartment slightly but soon the air flow would stop when the fan's ability to pressurize the compartment reached a limit. High volume fans typically have low pressure capability. A second thought. If the E/R hatch opens inward ( and many do) if you pressurize the compartment with a fan blowing into the compartment, it will be that much more difficult to open the door to enter and fight the localized fire. This would not be true for boats with floor hatches that lift up. regards Arild . _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
