Abstract
IN the High Tension Conference held in Paris in June interesting discussions took place as to the relative merits of fire-fighting equipment. In Part 2 of an article by T. Rich in the Electrician of July 16, the latest opinions of French engineers on the devices used in practice are given. For protecting transformers and alternators of large output, alarm indicators are used as well as extinguishing appliances. They are of the fixed type which operate automatically when the station has no attendants and when the generators are very large. The movable apparatus generally used consists of extinguishers, boxes of sand, blankets and water jets directly connected to the mains or to a foam generator. Gas masks, smoke fans and emergency lamps are auxiliary apparatus. Portable extinguishers are only used for very small fires. It is important that the material used should be a bad conductor of electricity, as small fires rnake a close approach necessary and the jet may give a dangerous shock. Carbon tetrachloride has high extinguishing powers and it is not a good conductor. But at high temperatures it decomposes into a gas that is corrosive and poisonous, so that a gas mask is desirable although it entails a loss of time. Methyl bromide is generally thought to give out less poisonous fumes but it is expensive. Saline solutions with a base of potash have a high extinguishing capacity but they are dangerous to use as the jet is a conductor. Carbonic acid snow is not such a good extinguisher but its use entails no danger to personnel. It can be used without cutting off the current, and so is useful in the case of small fires, but the risk of re-ignition is serious. Fire-resisting blankets are used to put out burning clothes on persons. They should be kept in metallic cases with anti-moth material and a window should be put in the case to ensure that the contents have not been borrowed for other purposes. o 'Atomized' jets which work under a high pressure have been found useful both in putting out oil fires and cable fires. For hoses rubber is better than woven material. Each 'fire' point at an electric station should have a sand box with wood shovels, a gas mask and a lantern.
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Devices for Fighting Fires. Nature 140, 271 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140271a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140271a0