Elephant Toothpaste for Forest Fires

Part of a series. 2nd post, is on most important tech we need to focus on now. Early detection. This 1st post was more fun and inspiration that lead me to look at forest fires

Big colorful foam explosion! Most of us have seen this video online. ABC doing world record elephant toothpaste (name of the foam). I repeated the clip many times. The bucket looks like water buckets helicopters use to fight fires. But the area covered by foam 25x or more times the area of the bucket. Oh sweet efficiency! Why not use this to stop fires?

Video links: Short 9 Seconds Clip / Youtube with explanation 11min

Why do we need this?

In my 2nd post, I will focus on early detection tech capable of finding forest fires the size of two semi-trailers in real-time in Western U.S. We can put it out at that stage. So we need a real-time fire extinguishing system. A network of autonomous drones in Western U.S for delivery, but they need a lightweight payload. Water is too heavy for quantity needed. Foam is inefficient, literally carrying air bubbles. Solution: Elephant tooth paste.

Also perhaps enough people have had enough retardant splashed by mistake on them, their cars, or houses during fire fighting missions. Toothpaste is more accurate and avoids effects of wind during deployment as described below.

And stating the obvious. Forest fires are stronger recently and cause billions in damages. Californian "Camp Fire" in 2018 cost $16.65 billion alone.

My frustration is that we have better tech to bomb a location for destruction anytime anywhere quickly. At least we can have firefighting be on-par with that. Reading about Camp Fire, learnt Cal Fire couldn't do night missions. Not only lack of night capable aircraft is the issue but also deploying the retardant which isn't accurate (Article-2017). Article states they are getting night capable Blackhawks, perhaps its solved now but not in 2018.

New Recipe - Snowman Toothpaste?

Regular elephant toothpaste wouldn't work, so I found an alternate. Maybe we call it Snowman Toothpaste for its cooling effect. New recipe is soap, vinegar (acetic acid), baking soda, and iodine as a catalyst. Thickener can be used for stronger foam perhaps.

Elephant Toothpaste: Hydrogen peroxide + Iodine + Soap

• Thermal, generates heat. Not good in a fire.
• Generates O2 which is fuel for fire
• H2O2 isn't stable, will become water over time. Can't store in remote areas for long time.

Snowman Toothpaste: soap + vinegar + baking soda + iodine

• Endothermic reaction, lowers the temperature in the mixed liquids. By 5 degree in one experiment I saw.
• Generates CO2 which suffocates the fire.
• Ingredients are stable until they are mixed. Can be stored for long time.

Benefits of Toothpaste Firefighting

Efficient: lightweight for fire extinguishing volume that is enough for early fires. Drone can carry it. Volume expansion ratio is around 337.5x based on Nick's numbers, 40 liters liquid became 13.5 m3 of foam. Deployment is faster than spraying water with a bucket.

Accurate: dense canister can reach the base of the fire and withstand the winds generated by strong fires. Then Snowman Toothpaste expands in a circle, none will be wasted on tree branches. The foam will cover the ground creating a damper for the fire. Covers the small fuel items (twigs and bushes). Foam is heavy enough to withstand the winds also.

Air deployment: currently we have some issues with dropping retardant from planes. Some planes crash since they have to fly so low. Sometimes the wind leads to retardant landing in rivers, on people, cars, and homes. Toothpaste can be deployed from a higher altitude and more accurately.

Non-toxic: all the ingredients will not harm the environment.

Platform: since the ingredients are liquid, you can experiment with adding more ingredients like long-term retardants (usually fertilizer ingredients) to the mix.

Fire prone area residents: we can extend this tool to residents since ingredients are safe and can be stored at home. This allows them to help with first response efforts as fueling stations or allow them to protect their homes really quickly in emergency situations.

Artillery delivery: one of the wilder ideas was to deploy this via artillery shell. Snowman toothpaste shells, that can target fires from a far range and cheaper than using planes or helicopters. But perhaps drones are a better fit. However, there might be a place for shoulder or vehicle mounted versions. Since some fires are so strong that firefighters can't get close with fire hoses to extinguish them with water or foam.