Re:Notre-Dame cathedral: Firefighters tackle blaze in Paris
by i_am_proteus on Monday April 15, 2019 @02:51PM
(#19667808)
Former (volunteer) firefighter here:
Park the truck next to the cistern. Connect a length of hose to the pump supply, drop the hose into the cistern. The pump will move water until it loses suction pressure.
Re:Notre-Dame cathedral: Firefighters tackle blaze in Paris
by JshWright on Monday April 15, 2019 @02:55PM
(#19667861)
Not just any hose though, you need rigid walled hose. Regular fire hose would just collapse flat under suction.
Re:Notre-Dame cathedral: Firefighters tackle blaze in Paris
by stcredzero on Monday April 15, 2019 @02:57PM
(#19667881)
Is the hose to be dropped into the cistern different from the other hoses? I would expect it to be reinforced, such that it wouldn't collapse from air pressure. Hoses downstream from a high pressure pump wouldn't need such reinforcement. However, it's different upstream from such pumps.
My understanding, which is probably quite out of date, is that it's mostly harbor firefighting boats which had this ability.
A coworker of mine points out that many of the San Francisco manholes are actually covers for cisterns of water, which exist primarily for fighting fires after an earthquake possibly takes out the water mains and starts many fires. I should hope that San Francisco fire trucks can draft water to use these.