Wildfires are very challenging for climate change and natural ecosystem. Many factors affect how a wildfire burns and how difficult it may be to control. The three sides of the fire behavior triangle are weather, topography and fuels. To put out a fire, heat, fuel or oxygen must be removed. Putting dirt and water or retardant on fire removes the oxygen from the fuel. This allows a firefighter using a hand tool such as shovel, axe, rake or Pulaski to extinguish small fires. Larger fires require more people and equipment, such as engines, pumps, bulldozers, helicopters and air tankers dropping water or retardant.
One of the factors that is crucial in wildfires is wind. Wind has a strong effect on fire behavior due to the fanning effect on the fire. Wind increases the supply of oxygen, which results in the fire burning more rapidly. It also removes the surface fuel moisture, which increases the drying of the fuel. As wind strengthens, it provides more oxygen and the fire flares up. However, eventually the wind, if strong enough, will take heat away from the flame so there is not enough heat to sustain continuous combustion and the flame is extinguished.
This project is about using this principle to take advantage for putting out wild fires using wind by firing rockets at the central location of the wild fires so that the rocket generate enough blast wind that can put out the fire depending up on the size of the wildfires. Some rockets have blast wind at sea level may exceed 1,000 km/h, or ~300 m/s, approaching the speed of sound in air. The range for blast effects increases with the explosive yield of the weapon and also depends on the burst altitude. This can put out wildfires because excess wind take heat away from the flame so there is not enough heat to sustain continuous combustion and the flame is extinguished. This solution can be hard to take at first though because it’s a bit out of the box but imagine that wildfires destruct many kilometer square areas and firing a rocket on small area to save the larger is great approach.
Another problem that can be raised is cost but think about it countries do not hesitate to spend on rocket for war but not this? Considering its effectiveness cost will not be a problem. After using explosive we can use water to cool down hot spots using helicopters or air tankers dropping water or retardant to prevent reignite.
Voting
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ABOUT THE ENTRANT
- Name:Anteneh Gashaw
- Type of entry:individual
- Patent status:pending