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rockies
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2020 19:36
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In addition to a fire extinguisher (there are different types meant for different kinds of fire - types A,B,C and D), how about equipment for fighting a wildfire?
I saw this video on PTO pumps, which attach to your tractor and allow you to turn a pond, stream or swimming pool into a DIY fire fighting resource.
Some info on PTO pumps.
https://www.hunker.com/13424591/how-do-pto-pumps-work
Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s-RDIFULtM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXeR9tMCIzg
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FishHog
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2020 19:50
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I’ve got a stand alone fire water pump and 100’ of hose. Has other uses but nice to know I have it if needed for a fire
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justinbowser
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2020 19:52
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Other than a hose and our catchment system, no...
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paulz
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2020 21:30
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Yep!
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toyota_mdt_tech
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2020 11:21
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Large fire break, gravel doesnt burn, fully thinned 40 acres of timberland. Other fire prevention measures around cabin, ie branches cut off at the 20 foot mark on close trees. Metal roofs, nothing flammable around cabin, full footer/stem-wall.
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Alaskajohn
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2020 12:52
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I live well beyond the response radius of any fire department so I am on my own and take this threat seriously living in a log cabin. My well only produces about 180 gallons per day, so this is of little help.
First and foremost, I have a minimum of 150 feet surrounding my main cabin with any trees or brush and keep the grass mowed. I have large fire extinguishers attached to each of my outbuildings and a rainwater collection system feeding two 55 gallon drums and they are always filled during the months where the water doesn’t freeze. I have racks, shovels and buckets stationed at each outbuilding. For the main cabin I have 4 large capacity extinguishers and additional rainwater collection systems set up.
Over the past 6 years I’ve been diligently clearing the surrounding woods out to a mile of deadwood, and the areas out to about 300 yards from the house and outbuildings I’ve cleared underbrush.
As a fall back, I have my RV in a ready state to bug out if facing a massive wildfire. I can only do so much with what I have.
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ICC
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2020 14:47
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A PTO tractor pump is probably not the best idea for wildfires, IMO. At least here in the dry west too many fires in the past ten years have gotten out of hand too quickly. A PTO tractor pump means you have to be there to start it, etc. That is often a bad idea. Probably not a bad idea to have at least a few hundred gallons of water and a pump of some kind so you can attack a small fire that may have started right close by there at the home or cabin. But I am not going to try to stop a wildfire that is moving in.
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ICC
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2020 14:51
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However, I have thinned out the immediate surrounding forest for the area within a 1/4 mile of the home, shop, barn, machine shed and hanger. Everything is metal roofed and all walls, soffits, facia are either cement fiber board or metal or concrete block or poured concrete. All the windows in the house and shop have internal metal clips that keep the sealed glass units (all tempered glass) from falling out of the frames if the vimyl melts.
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ICC
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2020 14:52 - Edited by: ICC
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Then there are a total of 12,000 gallons of cistern stored water in concrete walled cisterns that are dug back into a hillside. Pumps are auto start with fire sensors; also can start manually on site or remotely. Sprinklers heads mounted under eves and some roof top heads that squirt the water out in rotating streams to wet down the grounds. The shop, barn and hanger also have their own perimeter sprinklers and are all metal or concrete walled, metal roofed. That will activate even if I am not there or I can start it and leave.
There have been too many fires around us over the decades with two big ones in the last decade to trust to good luck or a prayer.
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rockies
Member
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2020 20:33
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ICC, why not install metal hooks into the walls above your exterior windows and build some metal fire shutters (flat metal panel with 2" bent tabs on all four sides)?
Put a layer of 2" thick Roxul Comfortboard behind the metal and lean them against the cabin below each window. When word comes of a fire approaching you can hang the shutters and secure the bottoms.
Since Roxul won't burn it would prevent your vinyl frames from melting or your glass from shattering.
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ICC
Member
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2020 23:17
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Because that would be fine if one was home, but I travel a lot... at least I did until the pandemic. The windows are special designs for homes in wildfire areas and do help a lot. They are not common but provide an insurance discount along with using cement fiber exterior and the soffit vents that have ember and fire resistance that meets the California wildlands specs.
Different ways to do things and I like to have methods that do not require my intervention. Less to bother with.
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KinAlberta
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# Posted: 7 Sep 2020 13:02
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Great thread!
Me? Got a lake. And some buckets somewhere.
So, basically not prepared.
(Three fire extinguishers inside the cabin.)
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deercula
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# Posted: 7 Sep 2020 13:39
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NO, We don't really have this problem in the Northeast. We do have fire extinguishers.
Most fires here are caused by careless smoking, lack of maintenance on fireplaces, wood stoves, and flue pipes.
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Dogone
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# Posted: 20 Sep 2020 00:13
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Many lodges and cabins have a sprinkler system in northern Saskatchewan. Sprinklers set to overlap several feet. Powered by a gas powered pump from a water source. Recently I have seen floating pumps which are probably more efficient as they don’t have to suck any distance.
The firefighters say with a 20 minute head start to saturate the area they will stop any fire.
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KinAlberta
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# Posted: 20 Sep 2020 08:40 - Edited by: KinAlberta
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In recent years our province has had two towns burn up at a truly massive loss and cost. Slave Lake and Fort McMurray. The former sits on a very large lake and the latter has a river running through it. Hard to believe that infrastructure structure wasn't in place to soak these places and safe them. I guess they couldn’t justify spending millions to access the plentiful water. But they could justify spending hundreds of millions and billions - after the fact. A case of twelve steps backward, one step forward.
Ft. McMurray fire:
1/3 of the town of Slave Lake burned up in 2011. No water nearby?
Lesser Slave Lake is located in central Alberta, Canada, northwest of Edmonton. ... covering 1,160 km2 (450 sq mi) and measuring over 100 km (62 mi) long and 15 km (9.3 mi) at its widest point. Lesser Slave Lake averages 11.4 m (37 ft) in depth and is 20.5 m (67 ft) at its deepest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Slave_Lake
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Aklogcabin
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# Posted: 20 Sep 2020 10:50
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We have lost our home to a wild land fire. And I was a wild land firefighter in earlier yers. Usually the electrical power is turned off in the area first if there is power. For us anyhow no sprinkler system would have helped. This is in a mainly birch forest with spruce. Forest fires can produce their own weather in that excessive winds 50 mph plus. The tops of spruce trees blowing through the trees like 5’ fireballs. The heat produced often burning everything to just ash.
I believe that most firemen would tell you to evacuate. When teams of firefighters can’t stop them .
The Firewise program is well thought out by the pros and should be available in most communities if you contact the local fire department. Many fire departments have received grants and will come out and give advice and even install fire and Co2 detectors free of charge. A good idea to have lot numbers readable and ask if they have directions to your lot.
My point . Wildfires are dangerous in many ways. May be best to have evacuation plans first. And one or a couple folks would not stand much chance against fighting it. And have anything important or valuable ready to grab. I can still remember handing our kids a pillow case and telling them you have 2 minutes to get what you can put in the bag. They insisted we take fishing gear, guns to hunt with , blankets n toilet paper. To survive.
Everything else was turned to white ash . We found a fork in a hunk of glass, probably a window that melted from intense heat.
Prayers always seem to help.
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