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For those asking about why there isn't visible water being sprayed on the fire... There's no point. Any firefighting efforts are focused on preventing the sprea
by JshWright 8y ago
For those asking about why there isn't visible water being sprayed on the fire... There's no point. Any firefighting efforts are focused on preventing the spread of the fire to other structures (potentially other parts of the same structure)
As a rule of thumb, the water flow necessary to extinguish a burning structure is the volume of the structure (in feet) divided by 100. The resulting number is (in rough numbers) the amount of water you need, in gallons per minute. For a fire this size, you're looking at tens of thousands of gallons of water per minute. It's just not possible.
- Raphmedia 8y agoIn the news they said that firefighters are entering the building to save as much art as possible before spraying water. (The news networks are pretty much as clueless to the situation as everyone else, so take with a grain of salt) Edit: They are now spraying the stone structures.
- blotter_paper 8y agoI wonder how the firefighters feel about risking their lives for art, as opposed to other lives. I'm not saying I wouldn't risk human lives for certain works of art, but I can imagine some boots on the ground feeling salty about it.
- pdpi 8y agoThere’s art and there’s art. And then there’s the symbol of a whole nation. I imagine even the most reticent would be jumping in on this one.
- kaoD 8y agoNot everyone is nationalistic.
- omginternets 8y agoThis isn't nationalism. Its patriotism. There's a really important difference.
- kaoD 8y agoAnd what's the difference? My dictionary, as well as Wiktionary[0], defines nationalism as "1. Patriotism". [0] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/nationalism https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/nationalism
- sneakernets 8y agoModern meanings of nationalism are synonymous with jingoism. It was once in the definition list on Wiktionary, but was conveniently removed late last year.
- laken 8y agoand if you follow that link, it refers to the 3rd definition of patriotism: "The desire to compete with other nations; nationalism." Patriotism is a better fit for this use, as there's the first definition: "Love of one's country; devotion to the welfare of one's compatriots; passion which inspires one to serve one's country." Generally, if we're not using literal dictionary definitions, in a political context, nationalism is overpowering patriotism where you want your country to be better than others at all costs. Patriotism is a love for you country and your people.
- pdpi 8y agoNationalism, in current usage, tends to mean jingoism. The difference between that and patriotism could be described as the same as the difference between love and obsession.
- pferde 8y agoI feel this is a good explanation: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction
- 8y ago
- CompelTechnic 8y agoFrance does seem to have a deep seated nationalism that I don't understand very well. They care extremely deeply about their cultural works to a degree that does not make sense to me.
- MR4D 8y ago"The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does" [0] Sydney J. Harris [0] - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sydney_J._Harris https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sydney_J._Harris
- kaoD 8y agoThat seems like a feel-good post-hoc euphemism (but ok, I accept that language evolves). Either way: how did France (the nation) make any of these artworks? You could argue it was made by anyone in the spectrum ranging from "the artist" to "the humanity". Stopping at France seems arbitrary and a bit... nationalistic. If any institution "made" them, it's the Catholic Church, not France.
- MR4D 8y agoGiven that France is "overwhelmingly Roman Catholic" [0], your last statement could be considered interchangeable. Perhaps (and I'm not French, so I don't know) many of the people consider them to be one and the same. Either way, it's a reasonable point that you made. [0] - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fr.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
- kaoD 8y agoI see what you mean too, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_during_the_French_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_d...
- ohyes 8y agoI can imagine that too. I can also imagine the cathedral being so iconic that a sense of national pride might take over to try to salvage anything possible.
- nkkollaw 8y agoI thought France was a post-national country, Macron said.
- sctb 8y agoYou've been posting a whole lot of unsubstantive comments recently. Could you please review the guidelines and stop? We ban accounts that won't post civilly and thoughtfully. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nkkollaw 8y agoOK, sorry! I go back and forth between HN and Reddit, I guess I'm used to Reddit, will pay more attention.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoI can easily imagine there are plenty of people who would risk it willingly.
- JshWright 8y agoIncluding anyone who signs up to be a firefighter...
- CydeWeys 8y agoI wouldn't think that any individual firefighters are being commanded to do it against their will. It's not the same as going into a burning building to save lives.
- agateau 8y agoParis firefighters are part of the French Army [1], so they are used to being commanded. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Fire_Brigade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Fire_Brigade
- CydeWeys 8y agoTo risk their lives to save things, though? That's what's at issue here.
- Scoundreller 8y agoAlthough structured that way, they recruit directly from the public, not from the ranks of the existing army. Dunno if you can transfer. If they get 8 months of training before employment, I kinda hope they spend more time on the theory and practice of firefighting than being a soldier.
- JshWright 8y agoI am a firefighter. Salvage operations are part of every fire (usually after the bulk of the fire is under control, but given sufficient manpower it also happens concurrently with fire attack operations). They're not going to take huge risks. Any environment that would be extremely dangerous would be an area where any art has already been destroyed.
- blotter_paper 8y agoThanks for your perspective.
- avip 8y agoFirefighter and sysadmin! Great mixture.
- StavrosK 8y agoAlso a paramedic and developer. You can imagine that the firefighting experience comes in handy a lot.
- jeffrallen 8y agoSwiss firefighters work on the four priorities of save lives, stop the fire, protect property from damage (including livestock), and protect the environment. Once lives and the spread of fire are under control, reducing the cost to the victims (emotional and financial) are why they are there.
- EthanHeilman 8y agoConsider the Syrian archaeologist that hid artifacts from ISIL and refused to give them up. He gave his life and was tortured to death to preserve those artifacts [0]. How many human lives and human energy went into Notre Dame? How many lives would its continued existence inspire? Humans are far more temporary than art and culture. Art and culture connects us to the people that came before us. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33984006 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33984006
- tcgv 8y agoI guess it boils down to the question: Would you give your own life to save the artworks of Notre Dame? It's a pretty personal question. I admire the archaeologist you described, but I believe no one should feel obligated to do the same thing.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoEngaging in an activity with greater risk of killing you than usual is not the same as "giving one's life". These guys already fight fires for their day job. One more little bit of exposure to increased risk doesn't change the overall odds that much.
- tcgv 8y agoIndeed. I just thought of a better version for that question: How much risk would you be willing to take to save the artworks of Notre Dame? If there's even a small but significant risk to one's life then nobody should feel obligated to do it.
- InitialLastName 8y agoIf a friend of yours called you and said "Hey, can you come pick up this painting I love before my house gets demolished?" would you drive over to pick it up?
- baddox 8y ago
- Raphmedia 8y agoOne would think that they had a plan in place and some key pieces already scheduled to be saved in case of a fire. They probably stopped that operation once the fire spread to the totality of the structure. For a while, it was only in the roof since it started from the attic.
- alttab 8y agoThey had actually taken out many statues by crane just yesterday to protect from the ongoing restoration.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago>>I wonder how the firefighters feel about risking their lives for art This type of art is irreplaceable and art cannot walk away from the fire. At least we know it has zero chance of doing so, unless someone shows up
- beat 8y agoSure, if you don't care about art, or national pride, you might not get it. Put it this way... would you run into a burning building to try to save the Declaration of Independence? (Assuming you're an American) Would most firefighters? Seems reasonable to me. The art inside the Notre Dame is on that level of importance, to France and to civilization itself.
- philwelch 8y agoThe Declaration of Independence isn’t just a historical artifact; it’s an expression of ideas and beliefs that Americans have always fought and died for. Notre Dame is...was...a medieval Roman Catholic cathedral in a postmodern secular country, desecrated rather than revered by the revolutionaries who built modern France.
- Raphmedia 8y agoThere are reports of people gathering around the site and singing. It was more than simply an old catholic building for the population.
- philwelch 8y agoI’m not claiming the French people don’t care about Notre Dame. I’m merely observing that the analogy to the Declaration of Independence is significantly flawed. Notre Dame embodied ideas that modern France has repudiated rather than upheld.
- Raphmedia 8y agoHistory and culture are very important to the French people. Our Lady of Paris is one of the cores of the city. The country and government being secular does not mean that the people left their Catholic roots behind. Atheist and religious French people share similar values and the past is very important to both.
- beat 8y agoWhat's flawed about it? Are you saying firefighters wouldn't run into a burning building to save the original paper? To flip your point around, they'd save it because it's symbolically important. Same with the art in the Notre Dame.
- hk__2 8y agoThere’s no one in the building other than the firefighters so even if this were a choice there wouldn’t be any live to save.
- chrisseaton 8y ago> you're looking at tens of thousands of gallons of water per minute That's only like six fire engines, looking up the stats. (But I don't know anything about fire fighting.)
- JshWright 8y agoThose are very specialized vehicles you're looking up. A typical pump on a fire engine will move 1.5-2k GPM. Even if you had that pumping capacity on site, there's no way the municipal water supply could deliver that much water.
- jonathanhd 8y agoIt's directly beside a river.
- JshWright 8y agoIt's unlikely an urban fire department is set up for any significant amount of drafting (pulling water from surface sources), if it's something they can do at all. You're absolutely right though, if you want big water, that's the way to get it. It's just that "big water" doesn't even begin to approach the scale of the water that would be necessary to directly fight this fire.
- vonmoltke 8y agoI would expect the fire department of a large city with navigable waterways to have fireboats, though, which by their very nature draft water. Even if the boat's own nozzles don't reach. they can generally be used as pumps for hoses on shore.
- stcredzero 8y agoThe devil is in the details. A "short" distance on a "small" island might well amount to a huge amount of hose. Then there's the logistics of getting all of that in place and hooked up. The trucks on site would need to pump to increase the pressure to usable levels, and all of that would have to be compatible. Getting enough trucks onsite might be a logistical challenge just in itself.
- vanadium 8y agoCNN's now reporting that water cannons are being aimed at the central fire.
- JshWright 8y agoFrom the limited shots I've seen, it all looks like exposure protection (trying to slow the spread)
- cma 8y agoFlying water tankers could do it, but they must act fast (Edit: All these armchair quarterbacks think they know better than the president's team of social media advisers and vetters, they have no idea what goes into that kind of operation and shouldn't question the president based on spur of the moment analysis. You don't think professionals would have already considered all these points before still going forward with the tanker recommendation at the presidential level through the official communication channel?)
- JshWright 8y agoFlying water tankers are a terrible idea in urban environments.
- giarc 8y agoThe person was quoting Trump. He tweeted that this morning.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- throwawayyoutoo 8y agoIt's true: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1117844987293487104 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11178449872934871...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- blackflame7000 8y agoIs it worse than the cathedral burning down? Because they do it in suburban environments in southern California all the time and no one has ever died from the fire retardant. Fires, on the other hand, have a much worse track record in urban environments. It's so obvious that people hate the idea because Trump suggested it. And frankly, he's making you into close-minded fools.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Wellshit 8y agoIf only there was a river nearby...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DennisP 8y agoI'm watching it on CBS News right now and there is in fact lots of visible water being sprayed on the fire.
- JshWright 8y agoYeah, now that the fire is progressing into the "decay" phase (as it has burned through most of its fuel) there is less risk of spread to other exposures, so it makes sense to start shifting fire streams towards areas of active fire.
- rdiddly 8y agoThe other thing those people might consider, and this includes our president, is that they aren't firefighters, have no idea what to do, and surely live in a place unequal to Paris in any parameter upon which you'd care to compare. IT'S PARIS. They're in Paris. And to paraphrase Chevy Chase: You're not. They know what they're doing. Imagine you're the Paris fire chief. That's like being the NYC fire chief. Such a person has a distaste for explaining to superiors why they mismanaged a firefighting operation, and has a lifetime of experience, and hence, tends to manage it properly. "Must act quickly!" Ya think? Hopefully the fire department in Paris, France is listening for gems like that from out here in the boonies / the ghetto hemisphere. How many medieval churches are there on our whole continent? Call us if you want a church bombed. (edited slightly in response to child comments)
- Scoundreller 8y ago> Call us if you want a church bombed. Makes sense. French fire departments are branches of the military. Edit: just the Parisian and one other fire service are set up this way.
- GreeningRun 8y agoYou are right, the others are from Marseille.
- jackstraw14 8y agoWow. He’s not trying to give anyone advice. He only wants people to talk about him while they’re talking about this news piece.
- rdiddly 8y agoShoot, you're probably right, and I fell for it. I guess the unintended consequence of my strict "ignore" policy over the last 3 years, is that I'm still a novice 3 years later. (Rarely do I see those brainfarts, but this one was unfortunately quoted in an article.)
- mschaef 8y agoAny thoughts on why there isn't more evident action from building fire suppression systems? At least in smaller systems, I've seen sprinklers that work externally to the building to protect tall wooden spires, etc.
- JshWright 8y agoIf there was fire suppression in the building, it likely didn't cover the construction scaffolding, and once that got burning, it was certainly hot enough to overwhelm any sprinklers. There are four major phases in the life of a fire, incipient, growth, fully developed, and decay. Sprinklers are designed to keep a fire from progressing from incipient to growth. Once it makes that transition, the battle is lost.
- mschaef 8y agoThank you.
- nine_k 8y agoI suppose that if it were possible, it would be very heavy, and could break the very structures it tried to preserve. I wonder if injecting large amounts of CO2 or N2 inside the structure would be feasible. Water-soluble foam, which is much lighter weight and easier to produce in large volumes, is also known to be used to contain large fires, especially of oil / fuel.
- IAmEveryone 8y agoHere’s a very close video showing water (pumped from the Seine) being sprayed on the roof. https://twitter.com/shivmalik/status/1117864730453061634 https://twitter.com/shivmalik/status/1117864730453061634
- JshWright 8y agoThat stream is protecting the towers at the front of the structure. It's not aimed at the body of the fire.
- vjeux 8y agoA twitter thread with technical information (in French, would someone be able to translate?) with why it's not happening: https://twitter.com/FranckMee/status/1117862376047382528 https://twitter.com/FranckMee/status/1117862376047382528
- Karto 8y agoSécurité Civile, the guys who operate water bombing aircraft, have tweeted a couple of times that the dynamic pressure of water would present too much of a threat to the structure. https://twitter.com/SecCivileFrance/status/1117874924268376064 https://twitter.com/SecCivileFrance/status/11178749242683760...
- arjunvpaul 8y agolike this - https://media.giphy.com/media/HNg3DbNsZ38Zy/giphy.gif https://media.giphy.com/media/HNg3DbNsZ38Zy/giphy.gif
- jcranmer 8y agoRough translation by hand: First, it's the temperature. A fire is extinguished in the first minutes; after a few hours, you can do nothing but contain it. It's the problem with roof fires: they burn for a long time without being seen, and are therefore powerful when visible. The aerial tankers are at Nimes. Helicoptors are a little closer, but more in the south. If you use one or the other, it would take several hours.. After the detection of the fire, by which time it has grown in power. Specific complication today: the discovery was at the end of the afternoon. The planes can't operate in night (experimentation is ongouging), especially in an environment as complex as Paris. Even if we send them, they couldn't intervene until tomorrow. Second point: access. A roof, it's waterproof. An aerial tanker would douse the tiles or copper cover, but not a drop would arrive on the file except at the stage where the roof has already began to fall. Then, the plane could douse the flames. But it's much, much too late: by the time the first tiles fell, the carpentry would already be gravely weak. In fact, these fires only become visible when the damage is already profound. Sending the aerial tankers over a building, that's already done. But for exterior fires. Under a roof, that isn't useful until the roof has already fallen. That's why these planes don't service this kind of fire. In fact, at the moment where one can still save the roof, these fires are only accessible by the interior. That's the difficulty with the work of firefighting. If they could, they would love to intervene without plunging into the flames... But while it burns under a roof, it's necessary to go find the fire. Correction after several reactions: when I speak of aircraft without precision, I think especially of helicopters. Canadair is clearly excluded by effect of its backwash, which can provoke a collapse of the carpentry, already severely weakened.
- yters 8y agoBased on some of the other commentators, tens of thousands of gallons per minute sounds doable. One mentioned a single truck can do two. Get ten or more of those trucks (which I assume Paris has) and that seems like a decent amount of water.
- JshWright 8y agoBy "tens of thousands" I meant more on the order of 60k+. Getting 10 engines there wouldn't be the issue. Supplying them with water would be. Given that it's an island, they would be limited to the capacity of the water main serving the island.
- Faint 8y ago> For those asking about why there isn't visible water being sprayed on the fire... There's no point. Any firefighting efforts are focused on preventing the spread of the fire to other structures (potentially other parts of the same structure) > As a rule of thumb, the water flow necessary to extinguish a burning structure is the volume of the structure (in feet) divided by 100. The resulting number is (in rough numbers) the amount of water you need, in gallons per minute. For a fire this size, you're looking at tens of thousands of gallons of water per minute. It's just not possible. I wonder if the fire could be covered with a huge tarpaulin or alike to try to suppress it.
- leetrout 8y agoThe thermal load of the hot wood would burn it even if it extinguished the visible flames unless you could cut off all oxygen flow.
- JshWright 8y agoSounds like a great way to make the world's biggest backdraft...
- EForEndeavour 8y agoIs "thermal load" in this sentence an elaborate term for "heat", or is there more nuance that I'm missing?
- Maxion 8y agoYou can have a tiny amount of material be very hot, but you could cool it with a small amount of water. Its thermal load is low. If you have a large amount of material be moderately hot, you'd need a lot of water to cool it. The thermal load is high.
- EForEndeavour 8y agoIn these sentences, you're using "hot" and "cool" to refer to temperature, and using "thermal load" to describe what physicists and engineers unambiguously call "heat," as in the amount of thermal energy held within a specific object of a certain mass, heat capacity, and temperature. In my admittedly limited experience with thermodynamics (currently in grad school for physics), "thermal load" seems to describe the exact same thing as heat, except it's less common. In fact, it initially confused me because of the concept of "thermal mass," which refers to the total heat capacity of a given object = mass * (heat capacity per unit mass).
- anon491throw 8y agoShort of a very precise aerial tanker mission (and how long would it take to spin that up or get lucky with an aircraft in training nearby, fill up and then vector it), no way to put it out. It might've been feasible as there are very few tall buildings or structures in Paris and it's in the middle of the river with nothing much on either side. People also should know that simultaneous fires on multiple floors of multi-story buildings typically aren't possible to fight either, reducing possible efforts to containment and damage mitigation.
- JshWright 8y agoI don't get all the hype about tankers... A tanker load would do significant structural damage to the building, would be a huge risk in city with a lot of tall structures, would be totally ineffective on the bulk of the fire (that's below the roof), and would require pulling out all the firefighters on the scene, significantly reducing the overall firefighting capacity.
- laurentl 8y agoThis is basically what the chief of the Paris fire brigade told the news (dumping a load of water on the building would finish destroying it). Add to that the fact that the closest Canadairs are 600 miles away and designed to draw water from the sea.
- throwmeawayl8r 8y agoIt seems like the weight of amount of water/retardant to effectively extinguish a fully-involved fire would be a problem AND simultaneously smothering the fire underneath AND reducing core coal temperatures below ignition point would need to happen. It's a thought towards a possible solution to a ruinous class of fires, but there appears to be a need for a gentle and widely-deployed technology to rescue historic structures in the midst of fire events. 1. Cool an outer structure rapidly with lightweight/gently-applied, inert, high specific heat material from above. 2. Thixotropic gently-applied, inert, high specific heat material inner structure (possibly same as 1.).