LAFD - Titanium Explosion Video

[R1SmokeEater 359]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDhnwLheoU4

http://www.youtube.com/user/BigWaveWipeout

[JBE 328]

Wow, dry chem??

[abaduck 123]

Wow, dry chem??

Aye. Titanium can burn in CO2 (!) and putting water on a titanium fire will likely result in an explosion. It can even act as a catalyst and decompose water into hydrogen & oxygen, which generally ends in a loud bang... dry chem indeed.

Mike

[wraftery 1,275]

Where's LAFD's preplan, cids info, MSDS procedure, 1st due's area knowledge?

No evidence of that in the video.

Where's the general knowledge of chemistry that a FF should have? This would have clued them if they remembered that elements that end in IUM are combustible like TitanIUM.

I still hear that the west coast is way ahead of the east coast when it comes to firefighing, but you can't prove it by that video.

Maybe the west coast dumbed down the entrance exam before us, and that's what we will look like in a few years.

[mfc2257 464]

Water on a metal fire??? You can clearly hear someone state that titanium is burring in the video yet they continue to pour water on it after initial explosions??? I'm totally dumbfounded???

[sfrd18 360]

Didn't dispatch make an announcement in the beginning of the video that it was a titanium fire, so why were companies putting water on it? Instead of asking for more lines, why didn't they shut them down and use dry chem.? An explosion might never have happened if they just used dry chem.