# Question, re: brush/forest fires and salt-water



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

As you know, California has been having water issues. Of course one of the concerns during droughts is that brush-fires and forest fires become more likely. But if the risk of such fires is itself stemming from a shortage of water, then that puts the onus on using sea water for fire-fighting.

So I'm curious: are there known disadvantages to using salt water for fire-fighting? For instances, would it increase the likelihood of non-burnt vegetation dying and becoming tinder?


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

They would have to use the appropriate amount of pepper to give it the right balance.


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## Bubb (Jan 16, 2008)

Salt water would be hard on pumps and equipment designed for fresh water use if not flushed out properly.
I don't know much about water bombers but I would imagine it would be much more hazardous to pick up water out on the ocean with rough seas etc.
Salt content in the sea water might be high enough to hinder any regrowth as well .


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## Guest (May 11, 2015)

Bubb said:


> I don't know much about water bombers but I would imagine it would be much more hazardous to pick up water out on the ocean with rough seas etc.


I know absolutely nothing about this stuff, but this seem super plausible. The ocean here is not exactly ever calm. Also: the ocean is fairly far from where the fires occur. Around the LA area, if you picked up water at the ocean you'd have climb over the fairly high mountains that surround LA to get to the areas where the first tend to break out.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

It will certainly mess up vegetation, if it's not accustomed to excessive salinity. 

It will likely be more harmful to the forest than good.


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## bscott (Mar 3, 2008)

Bubb has it right. The salt water will play havoc on equiment. Particularly pumps. For firefighting use pumps and all other equipment is extremely expensive. You see trucks being cleaned, not because the afire department wants to look good, but because replacements can cost 250K and up. Same for equipment. Hoses get scrubbed clean to remove dirt and grit that get trapped in the outer hose casing. Which, if not removed can drastically reduce a hose lifespan. 
Also during cleaning you can identify any faulty issues with equipment. That equipment will be removed from service until repairs are made. Every piece of equipment has to be in perfect working order. Split seconds can save lives and a working fire and rescue is the last place to find out some piece of equipment is faulty.
there, you know more than you ever wanted to know.


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## Moosehead (Jan 6, 2011)

The biggest problem as pointed out is the distance from the ocean to the fire. In BC most of the fires occur in the interior of the province. Not sure about Cali but its a big mountainous/desert/lush environment so im sure the distance would be the biggest challenge.

There are other issues pointed out as well but most could be overcome. water moves through water pumps pretty well whether salty or fresh, it is harder on the pumps and they should be cleaned after(I have a saltwater fish tank, so I know this well). The effects on environment are negligible. Plants are pretty robust, we spray chemicals much worse than salt water trying to kill plants only to have them regrow. Actually all the micronutrients in the sea water might be beneficial to the plants once the excess salts are flushed away.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

If needed salt water is used and as is pointed out, it is hard on equipment but that's not super important. The small gas powered pumps and hoses are replaceable and some are left at the site. Stirrup pumps are even more disposable. Usually, at least in most non urban fires, you don't see a lot of fire trucks or city fire fighting equipment. so they're no problem. The big problem are the fixed wing boat style water bombers. The helicopters normally just dip a large "bag" into the water source and dump it over the fire or into a land based tank to fill equipment. 
[video=youtube;cHuoXD_VmBs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHuoXD_VmBs[/video] This is a water bomber picking up. It's probably no more hazardous picking up on the ocean than it is on a lake. One of the bigger hazards is idiots in boats racing the bombers when they make the pick ups. On the Kettle fire at Kelowna the Mars bomber came close to hitting a few boats. Another hazard are floating objects. Because of age the Mars bombers fly no more for fighting fires. They were big. One of the things with forest fire fighting equipment is that except for the people using it, it is all disposable. Since the name of the game is to put the fire out you usually don't worry too much what sort of water you use. If it has an adverse affect on the vegetation a few years down the road you don't worry about that. If the fire isn't put out, there's no vegetation anyway. The main equipment used are, a man with a stirrup pump, a shovel and maybe an axe. As far as keeping the equipment clean, when you're in the middle...literally..of a fire all you worry about is the equipment working. You don't really worry about things like a hoses life span until after the fire is out. And if the hose isn't burnt thru or run over by a cat or just left because your leaving the area, fast. Oh, as far as flying over high mountains, most of the water bombers can do that no problem. In case you're wondering, I've helped fight a few forest fires including the south part of the Kettle fire. Lugging a full stirrup pump is no fun, running with one means you empty it on the closest burning spot and dump it as you run like hell.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Moosehead said:


> The biggest problem as pointed out is the distance from the ocean to the fire. In BC most of the fires occur in the interior of the province. Not sure about Cali but its a big mountainous/desert/lush environment so im sure the distance would be the biggest challenge.
> 
> There are other issues pointed out as well but most could be overcome. water moves through water pumps pretty well whether salty or fresh, it is harder on the pumps and they should be cleaned after(I have a saltwater fish tank, so I know this well). The effects on environment are negligible. Plants are pretty robust, we spray chemicals much worse than salt water trying to kill plants only to have them regrow. Actually all the micronutrients in the sea water might be beneficial to the plants once the excess salts are flushed away.


Actually, there's a lot of fires in B.C. and probably all along the coast that are within a 1/2 hr flight from the ocean. They use the closest water source available. Actually, on water bombers, there's not a lot of pumps.


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

The biggest problem isn't the equipment or logistics. Forest fires are supposed to happen - sprinkling the ocean on a forest isn't, but I suppose we are the center of the universe.

An efficacy study should be heavily ecocentric. I bet this could contribute to deforestation, if it became common practice - However, I'm not a scientist and have no idea how long it takes for salt to get out of soil. Ocean water isn't _that_ salty, right?


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

It's an interesting question.

I did a little reading and apparently it's not an issue for vegetation growth once the salt has leeched below the rooting zone.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Not that the conversation shouldn't continue, but I just wanted to thank folks for some interesting, informative, and thoughtful responses to the query so far. I enjoy threads that look at the practical aspects of a given problem from a lot of different perspectives.


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## sambonee (Dec 20, 2007)

Another interesting point is that saline is the main ingredient in fire retardant. I'm not sure to what extent of what type of salt but many of our every day products have fire retardant in them. Mattresses and kids clothes come to mind.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

at the time of a fire the priority is putting it out. so I don't think anyones going to be concerned with water damage to forests when the other option is let them burn. But I do think distance is the concern. a water bomber is going to use a lot of fuel if it has to fly a great distance...otherwise it could bring in lake freshwater from out of state as well....and many trips are necessary.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Diablo said:


> at the time of a fire the priority is putting it out. so I don't think anyones going to be concerned with water damage to forests when the other option is let them burn. But I do think distance is the concern. a water bomber is going to use a lot of fuel if it has to fly a great distance...otherwise it could bring in lake freshwater from out of state as well....and many trips are necessary.


Yes, that is the biggest problem.


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

Enough salt would make the land unuseable to grow just about anything. I'm not sure what that tipping point is though. Back in the day, it was common for invading tribes to salt the land to make growing crops impossible after they moved on. The pacific has a moderately high salt content. Forests burning is a natural event, which doesn't destroy the soil's ability to regrow plants. I don't think using seawater would be a sensible alternative to fresh water except as a last resort and only when people's lives and homes are in jeopardy. They might be better off using grey water instead.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

you can see the impact of salt on trees by the highway/ road side after winter...they do suffer long term damage....but I also think if that practice ceased, they would come back pretty readily. nature is amazingly resilient/adaptive.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Most of our produce sections would be a good deal smaller without the arable land and climate of California. So, as far as the pros and cons of using salt-water to extinguish brush fires, I guess it would depend on just *where* those fires are affecting. Diablo and others are right that forests can be resilient and forest/brush-fires are a somewhat natural process of renewing _wild_ green spaces. At the same time, we rely on the produce from usable arable land, California's economy relies on it, and everyone relies on those farming operations not being crippled or going under due to fires. Those almond and avocado trees CAN come back, but not within our lifetimes.

Which is pretty much the basis of my query: is less forfeited by using fresh water OR is less forfeited by using salt water to extinguish fires? The responses so far suggest the optimal choice is still open to question. Clearly, California is a big place, and the drought not _that_ localized to the coastal area, that carting ocean water several hundred miles makes practical sense (nor is it something that allows one to deliver water in a timely fashion). So fresh water would HAVE to be used for some sorts of fires. At the same time, there are legitimate concerns for the continued integrity of the equipment, and continued usability of any farmland affected. On the other hand, some uses of arable land can recover from salinity pretty quickly.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

part of me wonders if there even should be trees there (avocados or otherwise) if the requirements to sustain them are so high and artificially supported, and if they are so prone to forest fires as they are....maybe its natures way of saying this isn't working out and these shouldn't be here any more.


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## Guest (May 11, 2015)

Electraglide said:


> Oh, as far as flying over high mountains, most of the water bombers can do that no problem.


That's really amazing! Mind blown!

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Diablo said:


> part of me wonders if there even should be trees there (avocados or otherwise) if the requirements to sustain them are so high and artificially supported, and if they are so prone to forest fires as they are....maybe its natures way of saying this isn't working out and these shouldn't be here any more.


In CA, the areas that are on fire are naturally forested areas, not farms. There are quite a lot of trees here.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Personally, I have no idea if the various tree-based cash crops that California grows are simply the expansion of something that was easily sustainable when there was no drought (which come and go), or are - as you imply - an artifial imposition, stemming from times when the population was smaller and fresh-water concerns were minimal, if existant at all. Lots of places grow cash crops where there used to be desert. But I suspect that they haven't been hit with the double whammy of population growth and climate change, all at the same time.

I suspect that southern California will become the epicentre of desalination technology R&D....if it isn't already.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

iaresee said:


> That's really amazing! Mind blown!
> 
> - - - Updated - - -
> 
> ...


Ahh yes, but nature is not static. There are deserts where lakes once were...tundra where forests once were etc....it may just be that the time for forests in these areas is coming to a natural conclusion. Who knows.


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## Guest (May 12, 2015)

Diablo said:


> Ahh yes, but nature is not static. There are deserts where lakes once were...tundra where forests once were etc....it may just be that the time for forests in these areas is coming to a natural conclusion. Who knows.


I suspect the people who have homes in around these forests would rather that natural conclusion was curtailed.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

I'm sure they would as well but at what cost to everyone else ?


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