Infernot

Okay, I Am Going To Be Drawing Together Various Items

We have covered these in the past on separate blogs but today I shall concatenate them into one unholy whole, for we shall be looking at means and methods of fighting fire, hence the adaptation of 'Inferno' to 'Infernot', which I think is pretty clever.  Art!

     I wanted to use an especially topical picture, so here is the Ruffian oil refinery at Tyumen, on fire.  This is not how the orcs want their plant to run, in case you were wondering, although it's a constant risk with industrial plant itching to explode at the slightest provocation.  So, how do you fight a fire like this?

      Anyone who said 'With water' FAIL GO STAND IN THE CORNER.  If you use water on a fuel fire the H₂O, being heavier than the fuel, will switch places and end up on the bottom, sending an enormous tsunami of fire upwards.  Think of pouring a bucket of water on a chip pan fire, one thousand times larger.  Art!

     Instead, you use a Class B foam, technically an Aqueous Film-Forming Foam, or AFFF, which forms a layer over the burning fuel, cutting off it's oxygen supply and thus killing the fire.  Firefighting foam, you may be interested to know, was invented by the Ruffian Alexander Loran in 1902.  Art!

     Going back in time to August 1944, and the Army Fire Service of Perfidious Albion was preparing to cross the Channel onto liberated French soil.  What you see here are them practicing with -

     Firefighting foam.  I bet Ol' Alex was pleased as Punch with his heritage, especially when his descendants used thousands of gallons of the stuff.  Art!

     This illo is from January 2025, and the orc firemen here seem to have run out of foam to extinguish the blazing Hades their storage depot has become, as it had been burning for five days at this point.  Rather than direct their water cannon at the flames, they are wisely trying to keep the nearer tanks cooled, lest they combust, too.  The joke may still be on them, because crude stored in tanks degrades and becomes unable to be processed if it's been in the vicinity of high temperature for any length of time.  Ooops.  Art!

     In case you were thinking firefighting foam is a mere cipher than any pundit can pick up in mere minutes, think again.  I've copied in a list of various technical points about the matter and you can thank me later.

     I am now going to venture again over narrative ground that we covered in May, except this one mentions the organisation involved, rather than coyly avoiding names to keep far away from litigation.  

BOOJUM!: Foaming In The Coaming

     What follows is another tale related from 'Be Amazing's Youtube channel and their montage 'When Engineers Get It INCREDIBLY Wrong', which is once again rather unfair, but only 'rather' not 'utterly'.  Art!

      On the 18th of November 2016, the residents of Santa Clara woke up to the above, which is not snow, despite it being winter, but - 

     Aqueous Film-Forming Foam.

     The district directly butted onto Mineta San Jose International Airport, which is relevant shortly.  Nobody knew what had caused the eruption of foam.  Conrad, for one, would have been verrrry leery of going anywhere near it, since sinister foams tended to crop up on 'Doctor Who' such as in 'Fury From The Deep'.  Art!

Terrifying.  Yes it was!

     ANYWAY when the police turned up, they traced the flow of foam backwards to a hangar in the airport used by Signature Flight Support, who carried out jet engine maintenance for the airliners based there.  Art!

     There was no trace of a fire, and it seemed the fire-suppression system, intended to swamp the hangar with flame-smothering foam, had gone off randomly, as there were no aircraft in the hangar itself.  Since there were no aircraft present, someone had not bothered to close the hangar doors; after all, what could possibly go wrong?  Art!

This.  This could go wrong.

     As you should surely recall from 'Foaming In The Coaming', once these suppression systems are triggered, they cannot be shut off.  Sovereign's foam kept generating until all the reagent ran out.  A pretty costly mishap as you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in reagent.

     ANYWAY AGAIN SFS did the right thing and hired a contractor to break down the foam and vacuum away the sad remnants.

     One of the things BA mentioned is that the AFFF was 'slightly' toxic but nobody was exposed enough for it to be an issue.  It contains Poly-Flouro-Alkyl chains, substances that takes years and years to break down, which led to them being present in humans, animals, fish, foam and soils.  Thus the determination was made to move to Flourine-Free Foam, known as 'F3', hurrah.  Art!

"A lifetime in law-enforcement never enabled me to deal with this."

     So, perhaps blame the engineers for incorrectly designing a system, or it may have simply been installed incorrectly.

Hilariously Cruel

Conrad was listening to "The Critical Drinker After Hours", where he gets together with his friends and compatriots and generally abuses Hollywood and the suits who run it.  Today it was the turn of 'Supergirl', which the lead star, Milly Alcock, has been doing a Zegler on, criticising the fans.  This behaviour, she fondly believes, will have them flocking to see the film.

     Perhaps not.  It didn't work for Zeggy, after all.  And her ire ought to be better focussed on the merchandise.  Art!

     Who knew Supergirl was a middle-aged alcoholic?

     They also conjecture on how many of the audience will know who 'Lobo' is, since he's been roped in as a character.  I know.  I think I have a single 'Lobo' comic in the Comic Cave.  Art!

     He has a long tradition of being a complete bottomhole in the comics but has been retconned into a thoroughly decent chap for the film.

     Bah!

Least Woke Prez Ever

Conrad isn't going to apologise for his ever-present critique of the Orange Land Whale, I have to get my licks in before he keels over dead on the White House lawn, or slumps, lifeless, over the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.  Art!

     Donold hard at work.  As hard as he can work sitting down, which is most of the time now, and as long as it's after 12:30 in the afternoon.  Sundowning much?

     O here's a larger version of the one at lower port.  Art!

Conrad Answers Your Question Before You Ask It

As you should surely know by now, Your Humble Scribe is not a fan of those clickbait pictures that puff up a film or television program BUT WILL NOT TELL YOU WHAT IT IS.  I find this very irksome.  Art!

     The series is 'Silo', and it's about to return for a third season, with a final fourth one on the horizon.  You're welcome.

     Yes, I have read the series and had the impression that the Ferguson character was a lot younger than she looks.

"Charley's War" By Pat Mills (Author) And Joe Colquohoun (Artist)

I am proceeding apace with Volume 1 and may even finish reading before the anniversary of buying it!  Hot stuff.  Art!

     Here Joe well captures the fear and panic when a gas attack came in.  The chap is walloping what was called the 'Gas gong', making a metallic racket that everyone could hear to warn of impending gas.  All British soldiers carried a haversack on the chest containing their 'Box Respirator' and it was a race to get it on before you had to take another breath of tainted air.  Pat mentions the Teuton use of 'Blue Cross' gas, which was actually far less lethal than the Teutons realised.  Shells containing a BC filling were supposed to disperse it when they exploded, as a vapourised aerosol.  Instead, according to Palazzo in 'Seeking Victory on the Western Front', they broke up into frequently ineffective chunks.

Finally -

Going out with a Biercism before I go get my laundry.

"Kleptomaniac,n: A rich thief."