Something New for Color Country Fires
Published by DanM July 6th, 2008 in Southern Utah Wildlife and Nature, National and International Issues, Southern Utah Talking Points and Questions.Maybe, just maybe, science will rescue us again
Color Country seems to be living a charmed life this summer. (Knock on wood … to check on whether it’s still there to knock on, actually.) With terrible fires raging all around us in New Mexico, Colorado, and especially California, we have been relatively lucky … so far. As I write these words, lightning is crackling overhead and, maybe it’s my imagination, I might be able to smell distant smoke in the wind. Summer can be a scary time here.
(I want to give credit where it’s due too. Our forest managers have been busy, busy, busy with prescribed burns and policy changes. Springdale, for the first time in many years, didn’t have a huge fireworks display in the city park this year. They also didn’t almost burn down the town like they did last year.)
But for the first time, there might be something, besides just running for your life, that you can do if a fire is bearing down on your home: coat it with baby diaper gel.
As it turns out, the same stuff that soaks up liquids in baby diapers can be sprayed on homes, or even brush and trees, and might make enough of a difference to keep your home from burning down.
This stuff was developed about a decade ago. A CNN.com story about it is dated 1998. But it has just recently started to become well known. One of the most famous real world tests happened in Hot Springs, South Dakota. A wildfire destroyed 33 homes. But 27 homes were coated with the gel and 25 of them made it. The two that were destroyed were special cases. One was missing the garage door and the fire got inside. The other wasn’t completely coated.
The gel comes as a powder (much like it does in diapers). It’s mixed with water onsite and then sprayed onto whatever you want to keep from burning. It’s actually better for the environment than the stuff they use now and it’s easy to wash off later - assuming there is a “later”.
Since it’s mostly water, it will evaporate but you can keep it renewed by misting it with more water. But still, you have to pretty much be onsite when the fire is bearing down to make it work. And you have to decide to do it in advance. The equipment to use the gel isn’t cheap and neither is the gel. But it’s a lot cheaper than rebuilding a burned house.
In California this year, some homeowners are refusing to leave and some of them are making a last ditch stand on their own property with gel. As it turns out, it’s not against the law to refuse to leave your house. It IS against the law if you step off your own property, however. Firefighters say that civilians on the field of battle is dangerous and just plain wrong. Some civilians say that if there is even a possibility of stopping their home from burning, they’ll take it. Even if it might cost their life instead. I can understand both points of view. Expect to see more news about this.
The gel works so well that private firefighter companies are starting to use it to save individual homes and insurance companies, not ones to bet on the wrong side, are using these private services. Of course, the rider on your fire insurance policy will make you gasp like an electrical fire.
Since I moved to Color Country, two fires have had the potential of burning me out if they had flamed out of control. (I took the picture above personally from behind my house.) I don’t know about you, but I’m looking into it.
Not sure if ya be interested, but it seems there may be more to these fires then just ‘lightning’ and ‘dry summer heat’. We just peaked the taurid meteor shower, and they’ve been known to smack into our big blue marble from time to time - most notably the tunguska event of 1908, which happened on june 30th of that year.
Anyway, with so many fires across so wide an area and given that we have a bunch of people seeing fireballs and shooting stars, it might be possible that the source of the fires is a bit more cosmic in origin. Perhaps ya’d like to check out the data yourself.
That bit tends to go on a bit more then just the fires, but I thought that bit was applicable.
First, I checked out the site you linked to. In my opinion, it’s one of those that gives blogging a bad name. Since it didn’t seem to break any laws … it’s a free world … whatever …
Second, there really is a “Taurid meteor shower” but it takes place in October-November. Some astronomers do think that the Tunguska event might have been associated with it and that was a new one for me. So … thanks for that.
And third, the area of the California fires is wide all right. Ummm … about the same width as a Pacific storm front. Ya Think? No? Didn’t think so.
Ah well, sorry to hear ya didn’t enjoy the site more. Different stroke for different folks and all.
The Taurids do happen twice a year, I should have been a bit more specific, the summer branch is referred to as the beta taurids, they run from june 5th - july 18th, with a peak around the 30th/1st - thus the association with Tunguska.
It just seemed a bit out of proportion, I mean, Cali is famous for its forest fires, but these seem to be some a heck of a lot more then the typical summer bout. Then there’s also the fact that people saw meteorites and fireballs shortly before the fires broke out… and on top of that, there’s historical precedent for meteorites causing fires.
And I, in turn, have to apologize for conflating your comment with the web site you linked to. That web site is still pretty awful, but your most recent comment is better composed, supported by at least one reputable reference, and more interesting.
So … thanks for posting … but …
The LA Times article refers to “a fireball” not “fireballs”. I’m willing to believe that. I’m even willing to believe that one started a (one) fire. I’m not willing to believe that the whole catastrophe is a result of a comet storm.
We know very well - in fact, I have personally witnessed on several occasions - that lightning storms can cause fires. The idea that a meteor can is interesting and unusual, but hardly something to be concerned about. And although there were enough reports of “a” fireball to provide the substance of a “news of the weird” story in the LA Times, you could gather hundreds of thousands of witnesses to the lightning strikes.
Read Wikipedia’s article about Occam’s Razor. The best answer is the least complicated one.
The other reference is another web site with … well … “unusual” conclusions concerning the risk of meteors. As I was reading some of that, it occured to me that there is actually a fairly clear and indisputable place on Earth where the incidence of meteorites (meteors which have made it to the surface of the Earth) can be measured: Antarctica.
Consider this quote from the Antarctic Connection page:
“Antarctica is a unique collecting ground for the recovery of large numbers of meteorites. It has been determined that meteorites striking the vast ice sheet are better preserved than anywhere else in the world, through their burial in the ice for periods ranging from 1000 to 700,000 years (dated by isotope measurements). … The meteorites are believed to move downward within the ice, following its flow lines toward the continental margins, where they are either discharged unnoticed into the sea or are captured in ice where they stagnate against a resistant mountain barrier, There the flow path in the ice brings them to the surface, where they are now being found in large numbers.”
The article goes on to say that 10,000 have been discovered here. So … in the thousands of square miles of this Antarctic plain concentrating the population for 700,000 years, only that many seem to have fallen. Not enough to convince me to carry a cast iron umbrella.