Posted on 01/12/2025 5:08:12 PM PST by Paul R.
In this episode, Sal Mercogliano—a maritime historian at Campbell University (@campbelledu) and former merchant mariner — discusses the use of seawater and how it can be utilized to fight the wildfires in southern California.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Also, at 15:15 in the vid is the most terrifying several seconds I have seen out of these fires. Clearly, in all this, there were moments where humans would be outmatched even if everything had been done right...
Didn’t the Romans destroy Carthage by spreading salt on their land?
Wasn’t there a ‘super scooper’ that did just this this weekend?
Also, I heard California won’t allow lakes to be used for a water source for wildfires. I haven’t verified.
I’m not interested in 18 minutes of a diatribe.
Thanks for alerting us to this important information.
I thought sea water scooper planes were already in use....just grounded, in this fire, by Greasy Newscum.
Watched from 15. Interesting. Heavy wind blowing sparks from a McDonald’s on fire. He seems quite knowledgeable. Thanks.
quiet you
Sal should strict to history. Like most “intellectuals” he wrongly thinks his degree makes him an expert on everything
Why across the SW and TX with similar eco systems does no one else have this much trouble with forestry, and water, management as CA has for 2 decades
No, this is a political and a structural problem. The nonsense about “even if they did everything right” is nonsensical
They can’t do “everything right” because the political structure in place has failed for 2 decades to make the required decisions to make the structural changes to set them up for success.
The Roman spreading salt on an area thing was ceremonial, more like a curse. But back then, salt was way too valuable to spread across an area. The word salary literally comes from the Latin Sal, leaning salt. Roman soldiers were paid in it.
Yes, salt water can be used to fight forest fires. Then, after the forest fire, you plant alfalfa or Alaskan Lupine to absorb the salt and then plant trees a couple of years from that point.
It may not be rocket science, but it is know how to regrow forests, in the event of a fire.
Somebody tell Michael Bloomberg.
Liberals are prone to Dunning-Kruger.
I’m not even sure why there is a debate.
Harbor Fire boats are big and throw a huge amount of water on a fire. Who gives a cluck if salt water is corrosive, to what? They are salt water Fire boats. The LA / Long Beach Fire boats should have been sent to Malibu. Those houses were hardly Hollywood elite. 70 year old smallish wood houses
Can’t fire trucks pump water out of swimming pools in a emergency and credit homeowners for the water.
California could have had water desalination plants, along with its dams and reservoirs. California has the least excuse of any state for not being prepared for a statewide forest fire.
just leave a “thanks for your water, we saved your house with it” note.
Salting the land is quite different from using salt water to quench a fire.
Tons of salt, ploughed into the fields until they are half salt, half soil is not salt water dropped from the air. A few rains, and the air-dropped salt from sea water has washed back to the sea.
I’ve been involved with the design and permitting of large warehouses her in Eastern Washington. Due to their rural locations, they all required ponds for fire fighting.
My understanding is that they would have used inferior or contaminated salt, of the type thrown on the roads to keep them weed-free:
Matthew 5:13:
“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.
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