Hacker News Reader

Comment by vanadium | Hacker News Reader

> Also you don't just drop water from planes above cities... this makses no sense.

Superb way to collapse the structure, incinerate/crush the firefighters, and endanger pretty much anyone around the area, all while leaving pretty much nothing to be saved. Say nothing of anyone that might be trapped in there.

View on HN

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/15/trump-encourages-france-to-u...

Oh, that was in the back of my mind when I responded. Most assuredly.

It scares me that Trump may perform his daily tasks with the same amount of thought he applied to this recommendation or when he talked about the CA fires. Can't the guy either shut up or at least think for a second before he puts something on Twitter?

I know this idea is pretty far "out there", but what if you could have an aircraft hover over the structure and spray water, rather than dump it, like a giant shower? The whole idea of using water is that, with its high heat capacity, it absorbs the heat from the fire, as well as reducing its access to oxygen, but dumping it all at once obviously is bad for anything on the ground, but maybe showering it would work? I know, it's probably not feasible.

> hover over the structure [...] as well as reducing its access to oxygen

Wouldn't the wind from the rotors increase the amount of oxygen?

The foam that they drop from the tankers isn't as destructive as you make it seem. Living in Southern California my house was been hit by one and while you get coated in a red foam its not going to kill you.

How much foam loaded up on planes and ready to go do you think they have near Paris? It's not wildfire season anywhere around there right now.

Fire retardant doesn't put out a fire. It just prevents a fire from spreading. And even that only to some degree.

Well, the roof just collapsed, so I guess pick your battles. Wait for the fire to collapse it or try to save it with water. They could also drop fire retardant on it, the foam isn't that heavy.

Hopefully they already evacuated everyone.

The news streams just started showing water being put on it, looks like the smoke is dying down, hopefully they can save it!

At least if it is put out with water it wouldn't be burned beyond recognition and maybe could be restored.

Water damage on its own is incredibly destructive.

Yeah, it works just fine on forest fires. Not so much in urban settings.

But now that Trump has said it, a bazillion MAGAbots will be asking why they didn't use a plane, and start looking for a French conspiracy to destroy civilization or something.

Oh, they're already out in force, jumping to conclusions and linking this to a conspiracy by islamists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com