The fundamental energy release and spread of fire over dry materials makes it a juggernaut and moving target for physical response from firefighters. If inducing rain were possible on a large scale or depriving fires of oxygen without suffocating local life, the firefight would be much easier.
Perhaps designing neighborhood defense systems or periodic emergency short term anti fire forest node lines could help. Each measure taken to prevent fire spread has a cost, and we are looking for a minimum cost/maximum prevention knee in the curve. Remote water or extinguishing systems with enough energy to delay a moving fireline could put up just enough resistance to starve a blazing inferno.
I haven't researched modern fire prevention system architectures and their relative efficacy and costs.
Vladimir Vukicevic
· 3 months ago
Exactly - who knows what a smart set of people could come up with if only they dedicated a bit of their time to solving this problem. The government should set up its own Innocentive-like system.
Joe Charakupa
· 3 months ago
<lame joke alert>
Have they tried fighting fire with fire?
On a serious note, the nature of fire (I think) limits the options to (on the ground) design, layout and architecture. The problem with those is you don't know until after implementation whether or not they work. Presenting another set of problems with regard to spending time, money or expertise on it.
The solution may lie in looking into past fires all over the world that have had little human intervention and finding out how/if nature fights fire.
Vladimir Vukicevic
· 3 months ago
That's a great point - maybe there is some inherent trend that we're missing. Even a simple data mining analysis might bring about some insights - which means we don't need fire experts to innovate solutions - it might be even better if these people knew very little about fighting fires since they would have less conceptual limitations.
ShanaC
· 3 months ago
They actually do study that, if you ever talk to the Rangers in the Greater Yellowstone Area. The vast Majority of Wildfires are human caused. In fact, forest areas need fires.
The problem is fire control and water control. We don't build around water supplies, and we don't ration water logically. It's largely a commons problem.
Vladimir Vukicevic
· 3 months ago
I still think that an outside perspective by a bunch of smart people would lead to new idea and firefighting innovations.
DaveinHackensack
· 3 months ago
I can think of a couple of innovations that have been tried in Southern California. One is the planting of suitable succulent vegetation to deter fires. Another is the use of modified 747s to drop water and flame retardant. You can see a video of a low-flying modified 747 doing just that on James Fallows's blog on The Atlantic.
In general, I agree with you though, that innovation is more important when it comes to life & death issues than in creating the next consumer electronic device or application. This is worth considering in the context of the recent discussion on Fred's site about health care. We should want there to be profit-making incentives for innovation in areas such as fire safety, health care, etc.
Vladimir Vukicevic
· 3 months ago
I don't know how new/innovative dropping water from the air is - it seems like they've done this for years.
It's hard to create a market for these types of innovations without the government stepping in. Like I said, maybe an innovation marketplace like Innocentive.com led by the government could create some new thoughts.
DaveinHackensack
· 3 months ago
Dropping water and flame retardant from planes isn't new, but apparently modifying 747s to do that is new.
We already have government involvement in financing some types of research, e.g., via the NIH and DARPA. We've generally got the three prongs of government, universities, and private companies conducting research (although these days there's not always a clear demarcation between the universities and the private companies).
Innocentive is an interesting model, though I don't know how well it would work for very time- and capital-intensive projects. Have you looked on the site to see if any fire department has requested new technologies and techniques to fight these big fires? If they haven't done so yet, why do you think that might be?
Vladimir Vukicevic
· 3 months ago
They don't display who the innovation "seekers" are on Innocentive - so I can't tell if any fire departments have posted requests. But there have been one or two seekers looking for new heat-resistant materials, etc.
I doubt that fire departments or even local/state/federal governments are using it - most likely because they don't know about it.
DaveinHackensack
· 3 months ago
Interesting. Innovation can be a tough business. Incidentally, last week I blogged about a wall I ran into with an early attempt of mine to build a better mousetrap of sorts.
BTW, if you haven't seen it yet, you may be interested in checking out the site CrowdSpring.com, which is essentially an Innocentive for artistic projects (logos, etc.). You may want to consider them if you decide to commission a logo for your new blog. I thought of using them myself, but decided to stick with my logo designer for the logos for my new blogs.
Also, the name Innocentive is interesting to consider in light of your recent post on site names. It's obviously a portmanteau of "innovation" and "incentive", which I think makes it a pretty good name. Better than a short, inherently meaningless name, IMO.
Vladimir Vukicevic
· 3 months ago
Wow - thank you for the heads-up on CrowdSpring.com They seem to have a really compelling value proposition.
You're absolutely right about Innocentive - it's pretty close to perfect.
DaveinHackensack
· 3 months ago
Incidentally, I just found out late last night that one of the directors of the design agency I'm using (which is based in San Deigo) is going to be in New York next week. If you're serious about getting a site branded and want to meet to ask her anything, let me know. If nothing else, you might be interested in checking out their case studies, to get a sense of how one agency comes up with its logo designs. If you want I can also e-mail you one of the logos they've already done for me (which, IMO, is better than anything currently on their site, but I could be biased -- it was based on a lot of input by me).
Vladimir Vukicevic
· 3 months ago
Let me check them out and I will let you know. Thanks for the heads-up.
All Comments
Perhaps designing neighborhood defense systems or periodic emergency short term anti fire forest node lines could help. Each measure taken to prevent fire spread has a cost, and we are looking for a minimum cost/maximum prevention knee in the curve. Remote water or extinguishing systems with enough energy to delay a moving fireline could put up just enough resistance to starve a blazing inferno.
I haven't researched modern fire prevention system architectures and their relative efficacy and costs.
Have they tried fighting fire with fire?
On a serious note, the nature of fire (I think) limits the options to (on the ground) design, layout and architecture. The problem with those is you don't know until after implementation whether or not they work. Presenting another set of problems with regard to spending time, money or expertise on it.
The solution may lie in looking into past fires all over the world that have had little human intervention and finding out how/if nature fights fire.
The problem is fire control and water control. We don't build around water supplies, and we don't ration water logically. It's largely a commons problem.
In general, I agree with you though, that innovation is more important when it comes to life & death issues than in creating the next consumer electronic device or application. This is worth considering in the context of the recent discussion on Fred's site about health care. We should want there to be profit-making incentives for innovation in areas such as fire safety, health care, etc.
It's hard to create a market for these types of innovations without the government stepping in. Like I said, maybe an innovation marketplace like Innocentive.com led by the government could create some new thoughts.
We already have government involvement in financing some types of research, e.g., via the NIH and DARPA. We've generally got the three prongs of government, universities, and private companies conducting research (although these days there's not always a clear demarcation between the universities and the private companies).
Innocentive is an interesting model, though I don't know how well it would work for very time- and capital-intensive projects. Have you looked on the site to see if any fire department has requested new technologies and techniques to fight these big fires? If they haven't done so yet, why do you think that might be?
I doubt that fire departments or even local/state/federal governments are using it - most likely because they don't know about it.
BTW, if you haven't seen it yet, you may be interested in checking out the site CrowdSpring.com, which is essentially an Innocentive for artistic projects (logos, etc.). You may want to consider them if you decide to commission a logo for your new blog. I thought of using them myself, but decided to stick with my logo designer for the logos for my new blogs.
Also, the name Innocentive is interesting to consider in light of your recent post on site names. It's obviously a portmanteau of "innovation" and "incentive", which I think makes it a pretty good name. Better than a short, inherently meaningless name, IMO.
You're absolutely right about Innocentive - it's pretty close to perfect.