Better In Mist

                When a house is burning, who will against the fire? THE FIRE FIGHTER!!!

                In Indonesia, we can see on TV or perhaps you’ve already seen it alive, the fire fighter using their “weapons”, jet water to extinguish the fire. But… it takes a long time to extinguish the fire, especially when the fire is big. And sometimes, the furnitures in the house are broken because of the water and fire.

                Mister Fire Fighter, do you know that there is faster, easier, and less risky way to do that? Yup, it’s simple, just use a MIST!!! Our neighbour, the Singaporean, already use this method to extinguish fire in their country. Now, perhaps you may ask… how can that be? How is it work?

                From the Physics lesson we learn that water mist consists of many tiny water droplets. With the volume of water fixed, the combined exposed surface area of the droplets is much larger than the exposed surface area of a jet of water. Therefore, in a fire the water mists will vapor much faster than jets of water. With faster vaporization, more thermal energy from the fire can be removed effectively to put out the fire faster.

                At the same time, as the mist vaporizes to become steam, its volume expands by at least 1600 times and displaces the air from the surroundings. This deprives the fire of the oxygen it needs to continue burning.

                During a test, a mist use 100 times less water than a jet of water and able to extinguish fire 5 times faster than a jet of water. Since less water is used in this method of fire extinguishing, not only is water saved, but also the amount of property damaged (like furniture and home electrical appliances) are minimized. Thereby facilitating fire investigation later on.

(Source: Physics Matter GCE ‘O’ Level)