Australian researchers eye fighting fires with explosives

SYDNEY (AFP) ― Australian researchers are working on fighting out-of-control bushfires with explosives, likening the process of using the soundwave produced by a blast to blowing out a candle.

Graham Doig of Sydney’s University of New South Wales has been examining how blasts can extinguish fires, a technique sometimes used on oil well blazes.

In one test, Doig detonated an explosion inside a 4-meter steel tube to produce a shockwave and rush of air aimed at a meter-high flame fueled by a propane burner.

“The sudden change in pressure across the shockwave, and then the impulse of the airflow behind it, pushed the flame straight off the fuel source,” he said.

“As soon as the flame doesn’t have access to fuel anymore, it stops burning.”

Doig, from the university’s School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, said compressed air could also produce a blast wave, but would be harder to produce.

“The problem is you need a lot of compressed air,” he told AFP. “The beauty of explosives is, even though it sounds a lot more dangerous, you really only need a very small amount and these kinds of explosives, nitroglycerin-style explosives, don’t spontaneously combust; you need a detonation charge to be applied to them.”

Doig said he hoped the concept could eventually be used to fight out-of-control fires in Australia and around the world, potentially by helicopters dropping explosives into fires.