How did people deal with forest fires before modern plumbing?

[Gizmo j]

It seems like it would have been devastating and terrifying....

 

[BoomerD]

Well..."modern plumbing" really isn't used for forest fires nowadays either...

 

[Gizmo j]

I meant things like fire trucks and hoses

 

[SKORPI0]

Bucket brigade.....

 

[BoomerD]

Bucket brigade.....

If it got close to town, to help protect buildings, sure... otherwise, let it burn. Buckets aren't gonna be much help in a forest fire.

 

[eng2d2]

I think run and let it all burn - then return or rain

 

[IronWing]

I meant things like fire trucks and hoses

Those are usually used to protect buildings. Forest fires are mostly fought with shovels, saws, bulldozers, fire, and retardant drops. Basically, dig a line around the fire and burn off the line to remove the fuel around the fire. Retardant is used to slow the fire down to buy time to dig line. Sometimes the retardant puts the fire out but that's just a bonus.

 

[Scarpozzi]

One of the more effective "modern" ways to fight fire is with fire.... Firemen will do controlled burns, etc to remove fuel from a fire's path. The problem with fighting fires in the old days was they didn't have meteorology to tell them if rain was coming...or on the flipped side, wind. They also didn't have areal views of the region to really see destruction, beyond what you could see from fire towers. Most of the planes and choppers that drop water are only trying to redirect the fire, not totally extinguish it.

I remember a swamp tour I went on once where they talked about how the swamp caught fire from a lightning strike in the dry season. It's neat how fire can clear out brush, dead wood and plants and help new growth come back....it's part of nature on one level.... Sadly, California's winds and arid climates make it very deadly.

I remember driving through Florida years ago when wildfires were raging in the Northern part of the state. I drove down a 2 lane highway from Georgia to get into the state and bypassed the worst of the smoke.....(but it was still both inside and outside the car) I got gas at a station and you could taste the smoke in the air it was so heavy. We kept driving through to Orlando and Universal/Disney were virtually empty that week. I think they eventually got rain and it put out the fires, but that's what it takes to knock things back....

 

[Homerboy]

They raked more often.

 

[shortylickens]

Sand.
Shovels.

 

[Jon-T]

I'm sure everyone here heard of the great Chicago fire in 1871. It killed 300 people and burned a little over 2000 acres.

On the same day in there was a forest fire in Wisconsin. It killed about 2000 people and burned 1.2 million acres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire

Not much people could do at the time. The only option they had was preventative, clean up the tinder before it becomes a problem.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Bucket brigade

1) Create clearing around house
2) Plow trench around house.
3) During fire - throw buckets of water on roof to render it less flammable. Beat out falling cinders.
4) Pray

At least on timber-cleared land it might work.

 

[Printer Bandit]

Build moats

 

[Mayne]

Live on on the plains and get swept up in tornadoes...you can't win USA. Thankfully I live in Canada and only have to worry about this

 

[T_Yamamoto]

pee on it

 

[Jon-T]

Are some of the posters here really going off on a tangent?

Results of Canada's new pot laws?

 

[snoopy7548]

Live on on the plains and get swept up in tornadoes...you can't win USA. Thankfully I live in Canada and only have to worry about this

They can't even show it landing?

 

[Red Squirrel]

I always wondered that myself. All forests are basically connected in some way or the other so how did 1 forest fire not end up burning down the entire continent? I guess a lot of luck, where eventually the wind shifts just right so that it does not keep traveling where there's more trees left to burn. I guess rain helps too. Eventually it would rain hard enough at the right places to wet whatever is left and it would eventually slow it down and/or put it out.

 

[Red Squirrel]

They can't even show it landing?

I know right that bothered me too. They were showing this on the news today at work. The chair throw, some kind of Snc-Lavelin Scandal with Justin Trudeau, and Trump were the highlights of the news today.

 

[PingSpike]

In one of the Little House on the Prairie books I remember the Ingalls fighting off a plains fire. IIRC through a heroic efforts of beating on the fire with sacks and using their well water they managed to keep their house from burning down but everything else was destroyed. And that was just a grass fire.

 

[IronWing]

In one of the Little House on the Prairie books I remember the Ingalls fighting off a plains fire. IIRC through a heroic efforts of beating on the fire with sacks and using their well water they managed to keep their house from burning down but everything else was destroyed. And that was just a grass fire.

Oklahoma. Fire fighters and their equipment used for putting out ground fires. Taken by W. R. Wattson, February 1918.



Fighting forest fire on the Wallowa NF, Oregon, date unknown