>Fires can burn without an obvious source of oxygen. I am reminded of >underground forest fires and coal seam fires. American President Lines, my
Also tire fires. The tire fires are almost impossible to put out because air is entrained in the rubber through the manufacturing process. But if there is a fire, there MUST be oxygen whether the source is obvious or not. >last employer, refused to carry charcoal because of an incident aboard one >of their ships. The way I heard it one dark night the Lookout came into >the wheelhouse and asked the Mate to step outside and look at something. >The Lookout indicated a stack of forty-foot containers and asked the Mate >if he saw anything unusual. One of the boxes was glowing a dull red. They >rigged fire hoses to keep the adjacent boxes cool and never carried >charcoal again. >From a web page discussing this matter: Under certain conditions, charcoal reacts with air at a sufficient rate to cause the charcoal to heat spontaneously and ignite. Charcoal made from hard wood by the retort method appears to be particularly susceptible. Spontaneous heating occurs more readily in fresh charcoal than in old material; the more finely divided it is, the greater the hazard. Among the conditions that can lead to spontaneous heating of charcoal are 1) lack of sufficient airing and cooling before shipment; 2) charcoal becoming wet; 3) friction in grinding of finer sized, particularly of material insufficiently aired before grinding; and 4) carbonizing of wood at too low a temperature, leaving the charcoal in a chemically unstable condition. >They also consider raw cotton a dangerous cargo. Even >fully packed by machine presses, the cotton bales can burn. > Yes because linseed oil is one that can spontaneously combust. We've discussed this before on the old live-aboard list. There is an exothermic reaction for vegetable oils (this does NOT apply to petroleum based oils) and the heat builds up enough to catch on fire. Rags with linseed oil on them need to be in metal containers and preferably discarded outside the building. >Coal fires on ships in the old days at least, were impossible to put out. >I believe there was a stroy by Joseph Conrad where the crew had to abandon >ship due to a coal fire. > >For my money, I would rather set myself up to be able to attack the fire >head-on, up-close and personal, rather than rely on complex automatic >machinery. > >For the record, I have had two surprise fires on my boat. > >The first was when I was welding (at anchor) near the top of the >wheelhouse. A piece of slag dropped down through an open porthole into the >galley and set a roll of paper towels on fire. When I flipped my welding >mask up I saw the flame inside the porthole and quenched the fire with >water very shortly thereafter. > Most welding operations on shore require as part of the safety drill to have a fire extinguisher standing by. >The second was under the main berth. I had been working under the berth; >everything stored there had been removed and the berth fans disconnected. >One of the cats got into the space and moved one of the fan wires so that >the connector touched a hull ground. The wire was quite light and got hot >enough to set Styrofoam insulation alight with a small smokey flame. No >breakers or fuses popped. The smoke alarm mounted at the main berth >alarmed but no-one heard it (we were underway) until a guest went below to >get some water. I immediately lifted the berth and extinguished the fire >with dry chemical. > >An automatic system would not have helped in either of these cases, >although the main berth smoke alarm did work. Early detection is key in >fighting a fire. Perhaps an alarm circuit hooking all the smoke alarms >together ( I have four) would let me know one was sounding no matter where >I was on the boat. Does anyone know of a battery operated alarm that will >send a wireless alarm system to other alarm sounders? _______________________________________________ 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
