Forest Fires Burn Me Up

**ronjnk** · 09-29-2011, 08:01 PM

Rick, That was some good information and I suspect it applies to any fire situation. Stay low. It would take more guts than I have to stay in a bunker though on an island. No doubt it is one of the best solutions for many people in the plains/prairies and mountainous States to consider a bunker. But if I have access to an island, it implies I have access to water and I'll take my chances more with my trusty, somewhat blackened survival suit bobbing in the lake or in a boat.

I had pretty good luck as you see posting pictures. A couple files were too big. That's OK. As for my last picture... Keep in mind that that was the damage from the 2002 fire. The semi circle trail you see was our fire line cut by the fire crews. That entire line had sprinklers also along the trail. The burned circle in the burn was a chopper pad I cut for an extra means of evacuation. It did come in handy. Flash forward to now.... we did not have sprinklers this time on that semi circle trail. 4:30 in the morning I was out desperately hacking down anything that looked like a tree along that fire line. Didn't matter fire blew through there and burned quite a bit of the trees on the house side of the line. Sprinklers stopped it enough that we could deal with it. That green peninsula of land that you see in that photo also burned. That was where the fire jumped over the house and caught. Again , that was an area we did not have protected. Did not expect that to happen. Nothing to do but watch as it slowly back burned towards the house. My hats off to every fire fighter reading this. As we watched in horror from the boat, 2 planes circled over head. When conditions were right, they swooped in, hauled out there pumps and got down to business. They did some backburnig and mop up and I tackled that smoldering peninsula and front section. For those with money, a wajax pump is the choice of the fire crews. fantastic pump.

**crashdive123** · 09-29-2011, 09:47 PM

I do believe that if I lived in a remote location as you and some other do and that forest fires were a real danger I would invest in a compressed air foam system or other fire retardant system like Phos-Check. These are just two examples. They aren't cheap and I would have to do a lot more research into them.

http://www.foamfiredefense.com/

http://www.fireveil.com/wildfire-retardant

**rebel** · 09-29-2011, 10:01 PM

In addition to the sprinkler system a self starting generator to operate the pump in case of power failure and / or no one home.

**Rick** · 09-29-2011, 10:23 PM

And maybe bulldoze a kill zon...I mean a clean zone back about 1/4 mile so nothing can burn up to you. But, hey, that's just me.

**ronjnk** · 09-30-2011, 09:59 AM

Assuming that you have a pump on the beach scenario, select your pump location with some thought. Put it in the sandiest, open area possible. The point being that if it is in an area that can burn, laws of the universe suggest the fire will race through your pump area first which would be a bad day. It would not be a bad idea to have a sprinkler in that area either protecting your lines running to the house. I personally wouldn't want the sprinkler pouring water on my pump though. Just close by. As long as the areas moisture level goes up. I have heard that as long as your hose lines have water running, they won't burn but am not sure of that and never found out with any experience on that.