The high temperature caused fires in many places in Italy. How do firefighters put out mountain fires?

Italy has had bad luck this year. The incident in Europe is not over yet, because of the unusually high temperature and a large-scale mountain fire. In fact, the cause of the mountain fire is very simple. First of all, there is a long and persistent drought, and there is no rainfall. Then if there is abnormal high temperature weather again, it is likely that a large-scale mountain fire will occur. This problem often occurs in California. So is Italy this time.

The destructive power of mountain fires is enormous, so how to eliminate it? Generally speaking, every country has a unique skill to deal with mountain fires. The first move is to attack fire with fire, ignite a line of fire through the mountain fire in a planned way, and eliminate the mountain fire through hedging. The second measure is to control, set up an isolation belt in the area where the mountain fire is about to arrive, remove all the combustibles in the isolation belt, and then let the mountain fire go out. Finally, a large number of machines are used to surround small-scale mountain fires, so that they cannot evolve into large-scale mountain fires. Of course, there are still some countries that don't take the usual path.

First of all, let's talk about countries that don't take the usual path. Scientists in some countries have come up with the idea of using fuel air explosives to extinguish flames. Or a powerful incendiary bomb. What? It sounds incredible. But fuel air explosives and incendiary bombs are essentially the same thing. They are all high-energy fuels. But both fuel air explosives and incendiary bombs consume a lot of oxygen when they explode. Then the flame can burn because the combustible substance reacts violently with oxygen in the air at a certain temperature. Without oxygen, the oxidation reaction does not exist. However, a few countries still adopt this more extreme method, and most of them still adopt the three methods just mentioned.

In fact, the first method is to extinguish the fire by oxygen consumption in principle. Because mountain fires are different from urban fires, it is unrealistic to put out fires simply by water. Because the fire area is too large, it is impossible to put it out with fire engines and fire-fighting planes. The step of attacking fire with fire is to predict where the mountain fire will burn according to the wind direction, and then set up isolation zones in advance where the mountain fire will arrive. Then light the fire line near the mountain fire side of the isolation belt, and let the fire line and the mountain fire slowly approach. When they are basically close together, the flames on both sides will be extinguished instantly. Then firefighters quickly entered the fire and cooled down the possible burning point.

The second method, in principle, is to put out the fire by reducing combustible materials. A simple example is that the gas tank caught fire and the flame came out. At this time, firefighters will directly close the valve on the gas tank. In this way, the gas tank will not catch fire again. Fire tanks and fire planes come in handy when setting up isolation zones. Fire-fighting tanks use their own machinery to quickly remove combustible materials in the isolation zone. The burning plane was filled with water and thrown into the air to control the line of fire. Finally, after the combustibles disappeared, the mountain fire was put out.

The last thing to say is encirclement and suppression, whether it is a small-scale mountain fire or a large-scale mountain fire. After basically putting out, there are still a lot of combustible materials in it, which is the ignition point. Therefore, firefighters must go deep into the fire and remove all these burning points.