The aforementioned fire victim was me. The 20 foot steel ends on the guys were
of little help when the flames were 100 feet high. The tower was 80 feet, and
everything on the tower that wasn’t steel was vaporized. The ground temperature
around the tower was high enough to melt most of the spare aluminum stacked in
the area.
Sorry for your loss, Ken.
However, using all-EHS guys would not have helped in this situation.
Steel will weaken at 1000 degrees. Since your aluminum melted, that says
the temperature was in excess of 1200 degrees.
Using 30 foot-high steel ends on Phillystran is a good strategy where
grass fire is possible, but is of no value in a forest environment when
a crown fire occurs.
Here in arid, SW New Mexico, I have seen both catastrophic crown fires,
as well as fires which stayed on the ground, despite ignitable trees.
It's all about weather, topography and fuels.
73,
Steve, N2IC
Santa Rita Volunteer Fire Department
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