What is the red stuff in water bombers?

The type of fire retardant most commonly used in B.C. is a concentrated liquid called Phos-Chek LC95A-MV. It contains ammonium phosphate, corrosion inhibitors, thickening agents, and iron oxide, which gives it a bright red color and makes it visible when creating fire lines.

What is the red stuff that fire planes drop?

The red stuff dropped out of planes during fires? Here’s what to know: It’s fire retardant, used in preemptive strikes to keep flames from spreading. Phos-Chek is by far the dominant brand and is used around homes and under fireworks displays as well as in fighting wildfires.

How do fire retardant planes refill?

Some firefighting aircraft can refill their tanks in mid-flight, by flying down to skim the surface of large bodies of water. One example is the Bombardier CL-415. This is particularly useful in rural areas where flying back to an airbase for refills may take too much time.

Why is firefighting plane water red?

It’s a sight now synonymous with California’s fire season: A tanker aircraft flies over vegetation and drops a stream of red. But what exactly is that stuff? It’s fire retardant, used in preemptive strikes to keep flames from spreading.

How do firefighters put out forest fires?

Firefighters control a fire’s spread (or put it out) by removing one of the three ingredients fire needs to burn: heat, oxygen, or fuel. They remove heat by applying water or fire retardant on the ground (using pumps or special wildland fire engines) or by air (using helicopters/airplanes).

How does the red fire retardant work?

Wildland fuels depolymerize into flammable compounds. In the presence of fire retardant, cellulose dehydrates into water vapor and nearly pure carbon. The heat from the fire is absorbed by the reaction between the retardant and fuels, decreasing fire temperatures and slowing spread of the fire.

How do water planes fill up?

Sheehy: The way the aircraft picks up water, as it does not stop or suck it up, there’s no vacuum, it scoops it. And it scoops it through what you see here, two probes on either side of the keel of the aircraft, about the size of your hands put together, and as soon as you hit the water, they catch.

What is the pink stuff dropped on fires?

Pink fire retardant known as Phos-Chek is routinely used by aircraft in fighting wildfires and is about 85 percent water.

How toxic is fire retardant?

Flame Retardants have been shown to cause neurological damage, hormone disruption, and cancer. One of the biggest dangers of some flame retardants is that they bioaccumulate in humans, causing long-term chronic health problems as bodies contain higher and higher levels of these toxic chemicals.

What is firefighting slurry made of?

Fire retardant is known as slurry. It’s basically a mixture of mostly water and fertilizer. It was designed to protect trees, homes, and another structures from going up in flames. The mixture coats trees and vegetation, providing insulation against the approaching fire.

What is the red stuff they drop from planes on fires?

The Red Stuff They Drop From Planes on Fires. #Works very well, thanks. The red stuff is mostly water. It’s mixed with ammonium phosphate or sulfate (fertilizers), with guar gum or clay (thickeners) and iron oxide (color).

Why do firefighters dump red water?

And that’s not just water. The simple answer is: that red liquid is a fire-retardant chemical that’s color dyed so that it’s easy to see from the ground and from the air. That helps firefighters see where it’s going, and makes it easier to see where it’s been dumped already.

How do air tankers fill up with retardant?

In locations around the world that commonly use large and very large air tankers, a hose is simply connected to the aircraft that supplies retardant or water to fill the tanks. It can come from a batch mixing system that prepares retardant or from a fire hydrant.

How do firefighters drop buckets of water on wildfires?

Some crews also use helicopters to drop large buckets of water or fire-retardant liquid on wildfires. These helitankers typically feature a bucket that can be refilled by lowering the helicopter over a body of water, such as a lake.