What is FireBridge?
The following link to and the included writing of the concept of FireBridge, and how to gain maximum efficiency of your Apparatus, SEATS, LATS & VLATS, and yes, even Nozzles for various fires. The link is the complete explanation giving theory and history. If you want the short version with the formulas, click this link. Fire Nomograms with Engineers Q-Ref4
A look at the Relationship of BTU to GPM and why it matters and why you should consider it.
The following writing is titled “Fire Behavior Nomograms with Wildland Engineers Q-Ref4”, this document explains how to use the FireBridge concept with a Engineers Quick Reference booklet that I wrote for the Wildland Engineer to be. The booklet (wildfireengineer.com ) provides the numbers and formulas to take advantage of the FireBridge concept. Also on the FireBridge link above is a place to download the PDF version in its condensed form.
Think of FireBridge as just that, a Bridge that connects what the Fire Behavior folks (FBANS) are seeing and trying to tell the Operations folks (OPS), on the ground whats going on, and those guys saying …..”lol yeah right” (thumbs up), with a smile and walks away.
First to understand FireBridge you need to understand what a Bridge does! Not trying to sound degrading here but how often to do we really think about that? We know what Fire is. FireBridge?
FireBridge in simple terms is the construction of a mathematical bridge that has Fire & FBANS etc on one side(figuratively), and all of the suppression resources required on the other side, OPS, and the Fire-Bridge uses the FBAN Nomogram data output to be converted to a means so that we know exactly what OPS resources to apply, thereby being able to cross that “bridge” for suppression. It is taking the Fires Generated output in Millions of BTU’s and then determining what ground, aerial, equipment and heavy equipment resources you can use by obtaining their “equivalent” BTU absorption capacity or in the case of heavy equipment, the BTU removal capacity because cooling agents like water Absorb BTU per pound. Fire produces BTU per pound of fuel.
This BTU generation and absorption relationship is directly related to one another.
The other element of FireBridge is the coordination and timing of all resources.
As an example of this let’s say that you have a fire that has a front that’s a mile and a half long 7,920ft. It’s burning at a rate of spread of 1.8 ft./sec. If we found a nomogram that showed this to have a Heat Per Unit Area of 2,200 Btu per sq foot, then wed have a btu/s/ft of 3,960 times the fire line area. 3,960 x 14,256 sq/ft = 31,363,200Btu per second.
How much water is this?
BTU generated / BTU per pound = pounds of water required. 31,363,200/1123 btu/lb = 27,928lbs of water which equals 3,324 gallons.
If this is on a fire with heavier concentrations the numbers will show that.
In practice it will require more because of forward ros vs drop width. So approx 13.2ft is wasted because it is not hitting the actual fire line. But it is providing some benefit because it slows the ros due to pre cooling the adjacent fuels
Please
Download the pdf for more information.
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