Notre Dame cathedral is on fire!

[DonH56]

Good grief the political crap is relentless...

Anyone around a wildfire can see what a water drop will do to whatever it hits, even from a relatively small helicopter. Just not the right tool for a structural fire if you care about the structure and its contents. I would not expect a businessman or politician not around wildfires to understand that without pointing it out, however. (No, I am not a firefighter, not my area at all, but in college I did work a fireline on a forest fire to help out -- brutal, brutal work! And have been around far too many wildfires in the past few years.)

500 gallons of water (a small chopper bucket) weighs about two tons (~4172 US pounds, ~1892 kg). Dropped from far enough above the fire to keep the chopper safe means a lot of force on whatever it hits even allowing for some spreading (less spreading than on a wildfire where it is usually laid in a line). And as has been said it tends to be very hard to get the water where you need it inside a structure when dropped from above.

 

[RayDunzl]

Good grief the political crap is relentless...

He's President.

We're not.

Case closed (at least till January of 2021).

 

[DonH56]

I'm tired, too many hours at work, and too many naysayers for everything. I sort of implied it with the comment about the difference between laying a line from a flying tanker and dropping straight down from a 'chopper. The density of the drop, height, and how it is dispersed (e.g. how fast the aircraft is moving through the drop zone) all play heavily (no pun intended) into the quantity and how concentrated/hard/heavy it hits the ground. When I was working the line air tankers would leave a long line that hardly ruffled the pine trees. A shorter drop from the same tanker would break limbs. A drop from a hovering helicopter onto a burning log cabin (a pretty sturdy fancy two-story vacation cabin) took out the roof and part of the second floor -- and the fire was still burning on the first floor and along the walls. That was around 1982 or 1983 in Colorado so maybe that experience no longer applies.

YMMV, IME (and maybe that of nobody else) - Don

 

[Blumlein 88]

What did Trump do that was so wrong? I can't think of anything in regard to this. We already knew he was no firefighting expert. He offered an off the cuff suggestion. It was typical of his approach to problems. Hit it head on, hit hard, hit fast, hit with something that matters. All in the sincere interest that something might save the cathedral at a time when it looked like it might all go down. Other than being out of his field of knowledge why is that so wrong?

If a similar tragedy were occurring in the US, he might also make the same suggestion. But I don't doubt he'd listen to the real experts available and let them do their job. His invective would be to spur serious action and let people know all the stops should be pulled out. He's not a subtle guy. If you don't like him, you don't like him, but there was no malice in what he said, quite the reverse.

 

[Willem]

His remark showed two things:
1 He does not really care for expert knowledge
2 He likes to deride Europeans

As for the brave and utterly professional Paris fire brigade, see here for a little bit more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...resident-macron-salute-the-citys-firefighters