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
Sand and water tend to attack multiple sides of the fire triangle as they absorb heat, disrupt or dilute fuel presence, and can make it difficult for fuel and oxidizer/oxygen to mix.
Fire blanket just hinders outside oxygen getting in but because it doesn’t cool the system or dilute the fuel you can be left with an environment under the blanket that is full of very hot partially combusted fuel material which will violently react if oxygen/oxidizer is re-added to the system. Also if there is an oxidizer present the fire can continue to burn under the blanket which is not what the blankets are meant to be used on.
Similarly you would not want to seal the fire in in most cases as if the seal fails you can get violent reemergence of the fire resulting in explosion or jetting of flaming material compared to just letting it burn uncovered and unsealed. Fuel and oxidizer in a sealed space is liable to act like a bomb or rocket engine depending on how sealed the space is.
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