Is there anything stopping me from an engineering standpoint installing a water tower on my property and making sprinklers around a radius of my home to drench the area in case of wildfire?
In: 83
Interior residential sprinklers are designed to stop fires that start inside your home from a) destroying your entire house, and b) spreading to your neighbor’s house. They do nothing for wildfire.
Exterior residential sprinklers that folks typically DIY are really only effective at limiting ignitions from blowing embers. Installing non-combustible gutter guards, keeping your roof clean, and eliminating fuel sources close to the building are another way of doing the same thing.
If you’re using city water for fire prevention during a wildfire you are potentially reducing the available water for firefighters that may be trying to save someone else’s house up the road.
If there is *enough* fuel close *enough* to you that starts to burn it creates a big furnace and there is really nothing you can do. Eventually the ambient air temperature gets high enough that combustibles *inside the building* will ignite, usually curtains or furniture behind windows if the glass is still present at that point.
Also, do the math on how much water it would take to run two dozen or more sprinklers for 12+ hours. You’re looking at a very large storage tank, plus pump and power source, all protected by fire themselves and able to function totally “off grid”.
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