Why can’t fires be put out with big fireproof blankets?

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On the news they were talking about Tesla battery fires being really hard to put out. I thought, why couldn’t you just slide a fireproof fabric of some kind under the burning Tesla. Pull that sucker up, and vacuum seal it.

Basically, why aren’t fires put out more often by cutting off oxygen? It seems like the most effective way as opposed to dousing it with water or sand.

In: Physics

16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Chemicals that can supply their own oxygen make this strategy ineffective. This is why it’s so hard to fight a fire in a fireworks factory and it’s why electric vehicle fires are impossible to put out once they start. Smothering them with sand is effectively the same as the blanket except sand is more heat resistant and has a lot of thermal mass. Spraying them with water doesn’t really do much

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