Firewater

“ In the various composition of aquatic fire-works, although more care and attention are required, it is to be observed, that, in forming water-rockets, horizontal wheels, water-mines, fire-globes, water-balloons, water-squibs, water-fire-fountains, and the like, substances are generally used along with the usual ingredients, which, under particular circumstances, may be said to repel, as well as resist the action of the water ”

“ The air was filled with fiery particles, which floated even to the doorstep—while the crackling and roaring of the flames might have been heard at a great distance.
To reach the shore of the lake, we must pass through the burning swamp, and not a bird could pass over it with unscorched wings. The fierce wind drove the flames at the sides and back of the house up the clearing; and our passage to the road or to the forest, on the right and left, was entirely obstructed by a sea of flames. Our only ark of safety was the house, so long as it remained untouched by the fire. ”

“ Two or three men seize the nozzle of the great hose and rush with it into the burning [Pg 173] building to seek the heart of the fire. Smoke pours from the doors and windows in dense clouds, blinding and choking them until they gasp for breath. Water slops and spatters everywhere, steam rises from the blazing timbers, and the intense heat scorches and stifles them as they work. ”

“ The supply of water is the most vital part of any exertions towards extinguishing fire. Where the pressure is sufficient, and the mains large enough, by far the most efficient and economical mode of using the water is to attach the hose directly to the mains. ”

“ At low tide, one half the frame is lifted high in air, like a dead tree in the forest.
Perhaps all other elements are tenderer in their dealings with what is intrusted to them than is the air. Fire, at least, destroys what it has ruined; earth is warm and loving, and it moreover conceals; water is at least caressing,—it laps the greater part of this wreck with protecting waves, covers with sea-weeds all that it can reach, and protects with incrusting shells. ”

“ Stoves or ranges even of the same make are rarely exactly alike, but one can learn to manage the draughts and dampers in a few minutes' examination by keeping in mind the fixed principle that a stream of air enters under the fire, flows through the fire and passes out through the chimney. That to make the fire hot, we do our utmost to remove obstructions from the stream; that to deaden the fire, we obstruct the stream as much as we can. ”

“ What is still more extraordinary, on making a dam, and preventing the flowing of fresh water to the ignited part, that which was already there having been drained away, a burning candle being applied to the surface of the dry earth at the same point where the water before burned, the fumes take fire, and burn with a resplendent light, the cone of the flame ascending a foot and a half from the surface of the earth. ”

“ Huge billows of fire would roll over each other, and great waves of fiery flame would dash against each other and leap high in the air like the waves of the sea during a violent storm. On the crest of these waves I could see human beings rise, but soon to be carried down again to the lowest depth of this awful lake of fire. ”

“ There is no harder problem for the engines than these fierce-driven water-front fires that sweep in suddenly shoreward, for they must be taken head on, with all the smoke in the firemen's faces, and water often lacking, strange to say, although the river is so near. ”

“ At last, when no other fuel remains, the herdsmen on the top of the mountains set fire to these, and the fire runs down in the very path in which, some months before, the water ran, filling the whole gully with flame, which does not end till it is checked by the ocean below where the torrent of water entered, and where the fuel of course ceases. ”

“ In one ravine, the smoke from a bush-fire rolls lazily up in murky columns, till the gale, catching it as it emerges from the shelter of the gully, whirls it abroad, amid the dashing spray and driving rain. ”

“ A stray spark will often set on fire one of these houses of grass and wood, and then, one after another, other habitations fall a prey to the flames. There is no fire brigade, and it would not be of any use if there were one, for there is no public water-supply. ”

“ For days and nights the fires are kept at glowing heat. A forced blast maintains the draught; the steam condensed back into warm water is supplied to the boilers; half-naked men work hour after hour to rake the fires, clean them, pile on the fuel, and keep the most powerful head of steam the boilers can stand.
When the furnace doors are opened tongues of flame leap forth, and the heat is enough to make a man sick. ”

“ From the banks many charred remains of victims of flames and flood are plainly visible to the naked eye, as the retreating waters reluctantly give up their dead. Beneath almost every log or blackened beam a glistening skull or the blanched remnants of ribs or limbs mark all that remains of life's hopes and dreams.
Since ten o'clock last night the fire engines have been busy. Water has been constantly playing on the burning ruins. At times the fire seems almost extinguished, but fitful flames suddenly break out afresh in some new quarter, and again the water and flames wage fierce combat. ”

“ On going with the branch inside the house, besides the advantage of the water rushing directly from the hose upon the fire, there is a great saving in the article of water itself. The whole that is thrown by the engine is applied to the right purpose. ”

“ To make Water more efficacious in extinguishing Fires.—Throw into a pump, which contains fifty or sixty buckets of water, eight or ten pounds of salt or pearlashes, and the water thus impregnated will wonderfully accelerate the extinction of the most furious conflagration. Muddy water is better than clear, and can be obtained when salt and ashes cannot. ”

“ A good deal of nonsense, during the excitement of the present fire, was talked about an inadequate supply of water to meet the wants of the exigency, but this was found to be fallacious. There was plenty of water all the time, and while there was much reckless and needless waste, there was sufficient of the element to meet the demands of the firemen and hose-men. It is a popular cry to raise at a fire which cannot be got under way, that there is no water. ”

“ The flames of Wastewater swept southward, howling like fiends as they flung themselves up into the dark, crowded always from their places, as waves are crowded onward, by fresh roaring surges of fire. Where there had once been attic or mansard rooms in Wastewater there were now pits where pink flames burned under a play of dancing blue lights; at intervals of only a few minutes fresh portions of roofs and floors collapsed, and the maids would exclaim under their breath as the fresh grinding and sucking and devouring began. ”

“ The value of the system of hydraulic transmission for the extinction of fire can hardly be overestimated where, as in London and most large towns, the ordinary pressure in the water mains is insufficient for the purpose. ”

“ When using the one powerful stream at the bow a brick wall can be penetrated, and the fire is not only deluged, but the force of the stream knocks the flaming timbers to pieces, and so distributes the fire that it can be quenched more rapidly. When playing a multitude of smaller streams the fire boat can go between a warehouse and a group of vessels, no matter how furious the fire may be, and there obtain a point of vantage impossible to a land engine. ”

“ It is no wonder that those whose homes are in the forest gather quickly to fight the fire, for if they cannot control it, they may lose everything that they possess. If there is a wind blowing, the fire will probably sweep over many miles of country. At night, though, when the air becomes cooler and more quiet, the men can get the advantage of it.
You can understand, of course, that it is impossible to use water against such a fire, for water is not to be had throughout most parts of the forests. Instead of using water, the men fight fire with fire. ”

“ Having, apparently, decided that it would be unwise to cultivate a closer acquaintance with two men in a boat, our swimmer humped his back, lifted high his broad tail and with it struck the water a powerful slap, the noise of which reverberated from "Mud Pond Mountain to East Inlet Holler" and it threw a shower of water and spray eight or ten feet into the air, looking like some of the war pictures of exploding mines. ”

“ In places the steep banks were clothed with green trees, pines and larches, and at the foot of the escarpments there shot upwards innumerable white fumaroles, the vapor escaping from the soil as from an enormous reservoir in which the water is kept in permanent ebullition by subterranean fire. ”

“ The fire will spread and resistance will be impossible. If, however, instead of uselessly dividing the water, it had remained concentrated in one reservoir with an effective system of pipes to direct it where it was wanted for short, energetic, and efficient use, the town would have been safe. ”

“ It is interesting to note the tendency of organic matter, when mixed with water, to give rise to explosive and combustible products. Explosions in cesspools and sewers have occurred many times. When wet hay is stored in stack it catches fire. When we stir the mud at the bottom of a pond or river, bubbles of combustible marsh-gas rise to the surface. ”

“ Rivers, with their ruinous inundations, seem to me the most potent of all causes of terrestrial losses, and not fire, as some have maintained; because the violence of fire is exhausted where there is nothing forthcoming to feed it. The flowing of water, which is maintained by sloping valleys, ends and dies at the lowest depth of the valley; but fire is caused by fuel and the movement of water by incline. ”

“ The perfect foam of the river, after its descent, and the ever-varying shapes of mist, rising up, to become clouds in the sky, would be the very picture of confusion, were it merely transient, like the rage of a tempest. But when the beholder has stood awhile, and perceives no lull in the storm, and considers that the vapor and the foam are as everlasting as the rocks which produce them, all this turmoil assumes a sort of calmness. It soothes, while it awes the mind. ”

“ It is unhappily, too, at the commencement of fires, that this tendency to confusion and terror is the strongest, when a bucket of water, properly applied, is generally of more value than a hundred will be half an hour afterwards. ”

“ Only seldom, when the slight breeze stirred and parted the everlasting, unbottled vapors, were we granted a fleeting glimpse, many hundreds of feet below on the bottom of the well, of the plummetless hole that spills upward its poisonous breath. If the frail-seeming ledge on which we hung had caved, not one of us could have reached bottom alive—the deadly fumes would have done for us far short of that. ”

“ Though water, aided by time, is probably the chief excavating power, there can be no doubt that the action of subterranean fire has likewise produced, and still produces, many hollows in the hard crust of the earth. ”

“ It would be the first one aboard the boat that trip.
Their craft had been stored, for the remainder of the night following the fire, at a house farther up the river than the destroyed lumber yard. And now, as they steamed past it, they saw men at work, trying to see if anything had been saved from the flames. Some of the piles were still smouldering, and on these the firemen were playing streams of water. ”

“ The water is also led to the building in sufficient abundance to supply all the requirements of the establishment, and the force is sufficiently strong to bring the water to bear, by means of the hose, on to the highest parts of the buildings in such an emergency as fire. In addition to a plentiful supply of fire-hose, fixed fire-escapes are so placed that the building can be emptied of their inmates in two or three minutes. ”

“ A breakwater, we are told on the highest authority, is an obstruction of wood, stone, or other material, as a boom or raft of wood, sunken vessels, &c., placed before the entrance of a port or harbour, or any projection from the land into the sea, as a mole, pier, or jetty, so situated as to break the force of the waves and prevent damage to shipping lying at anchor within them. ”

“ When it became too dark to see the river for any distance ahead, the boys anchored in a little cove cut out of the foot of a mountain by the beating of waters, covering hundreds of years, and built a roaring fire in the coal stove. ”

“ Fire, when it occurs, is awfully destructive, their roofs, chimneys, and walls all wood, and that intended for fuel piled against the planks outside, probably for the sake of warmth, as the wind whistles through every cranny. ”

“ If we allow the vessel to cool below redness in the dark, the water then bursts into active ebullition, and is dissipated into vapour with almost explosive violence. An equal quantity of water being projected into two similar vessels, over the fire, one cold and the other red hot, it will be found that the water in the cold vessel will boil and evaporate long before that in the one which is red hot. ”

“ The "burnt water" concept implies the struggle of opposites, fire and water, which transcends in a third party, other than the two that created it. Such that the balanced encounter of water and fire, produces steam, which rises and symbolically detaches from the material reality. ”