How much Heat before explosion

[vidro]

I live about 60 mile from Cross plains TX and Eastland TX.

Some may have heard about the fire fights in these areas, assistance in combating fires had mostly been from Volunteers but some bigger cities have started to send in their fire crews to aid.

 

It's still very dry with not much hope for relief in sight so fires are inevitable and will most likely continue to break out.

Material positions have no value when it comes to life or death situation

 

How much heat do you think one of these pathies could take before the vehicle body would melt or the tires would burn off ?

Or the gas tank would blow?

[headpeace]

I have no idea but I sure wouldn't want to find out

[vidro]

I guess if I'm running around dousing out fires and it gets to hot to handel

and it require me to leave the vicinity, the vehicle should be o.k. with the possibility of a warped paint job, you think?

[headpeace]

I'd say if your paint starts flakin off or whatever then you waited way too long to get the heck outta there, be careful out there bro

[statikuz]

gasoline ignites at about 500 degrees F, not sure how that works out in terms of it being inside a gas tank, but i imagine if the metal got that hot, it would ignite the gas inside and byebye pathfinder. =)

Edited January 3, 2006 by statikuz

[Crazy Geologist]

Gasoline will ignite at temperatures between 500F and 550F.

 

The UEL (upper explosive limit) and LEL (lower explosive limit) of hydrocarbon fuels (and hydrogen for that matter) are dependent on the saturation of fuel and oxygen. The UEL for gasoline is 7.6 % fuel in air (air is ~20% oxygen at sea level)and the LEL is 1.3 % fuel in air. This means that a fuel tank or line must rupture and allow mixing of air with the fuel before an explosion can occur.

 

a car tire will explode (sounds like a gunshot) within 5 minutes of exposure to open flame, at least that is what happened to my friend's car when the leaves he parked on caught fire.

 

What you should really look out for if you are worried about explosions are those 5 gal propane tanks used for barbeques and heaters. Those things are already under high pressure, so when heated, they can overpressure and rupture (and become missles) much easier than a gasoline tank. If your house is in an area that may be evacuated, take your bbq fuel and leave it with the tank exchange company at your supermarket. Often firefighters will abandon houses which they know have gas cylinders on the patio.

[FLApathy]

yeah that too CG, and has anybody ever thrown a match into a tank of gas, u should try it one day

 

the match would go right out (dont do this either)

 

now take a can of gas and pour it on the ground, come back 10 minutes later and throw a match on the ground (DONT REALLY DO THIS) it would exploded, not violently but there would be a fast moving ball of fire

 

gas doesnt catch on fire, the vapors it gives off does, and i know somebody is going to say differently but theres alot more to this then what i just typed

 

i cant find my ifsta book to explain it better but from what i remember thats about what it said

 

i wouldnt worry bout the gas exploding in the tank, ive actually never heard of that happening, ive ssen car fires that have melted most of the rad and anything that wasnt solid steel

 

Often firefighters will abandon houses which they know have gas cylinders on the patio.

 

yeah, as an ff, if house A has something like that and house B doesnt and there both on fire, house b gets the water, and besides, in a situation like that if theres that many house fires at once that the danger to the ffs is probably going to be the factor that determines whic house to attempt to save, among other factors

Edited January 3, 2006 by FLApathy

[k9sar]

so.... hide your propane tanks where the firefighters can't see them, right?

[Guest Random]

I would think that at 500+ degrees that the problem wouldn't be with the fuel tank itself but more with all the rubber and plastic parts in the fuel system. The fuel cap on my P/F is made of plastic and I doubt that it's the phenolic (spell?) type. So I would imagine that it would melt releasing the evaporated fuel vapors in the tank, at this point you would have a problem. Same goes for any rubber sections of the fuel line along the frame. As mentioned before the fuel vapor is what you have to watch out for not the fuel itself as far as an explosion is concerned, liquid fuel just burns although when coupled with the explosion of the vapor things can and usually get pretty dramatic.

Be safe and keep your head together, life and limb are more important than all the property in the world. When in doubt err on the side of caution.

Ted.

[FLApathy]

yeah i was going to say i would be more worried about the fuel lines melting and letting gas out, ive seen the lights on fire trucks melt off before, is there like a staging area that u could park at, or like in a big open field

[Trainman]

Sorry to hear about what is happening down your way.

 

I worked on a 10,000 ha wildfire in the late 90's when a hoe being used to help fight the fire was burned up. It was left on a log landing that was almost 70m across cleared of anything that could burn, the hoe was parked in the middle. Burnt up during the night, just from the heat.

 

Good luck and as one who as seen what fires like that can do, be safe and I hope that you get the break in the weather you need.

[tmorgan4]

If you have time, let the engine run for awhile at high rpms to burn off as much of the gas as you have time to do. It would take quite awhile to empty the whole tank, but I would think the less you have the better the outcome might be.

[Precise1]

a hoe being used to help fight the fire was burned up.

Damn, what a waste !! I hope it was merciful and you gave her a nice funeral.

I would think the less you have the better the outcome might be.

Exactly opposite, as others have mentioned already... It's basically the fumes that burn, so the more full the better. You know how they make the big Hollywood movie fire balls ? An open ended 55 gallon drum, a few cups of gas and ignition source...

 

Point is, the Pathy will basically be ruined before it truely catches fire or explodes. All you can do is try to make sure that doesn't happen, then watch out for your own butt. Thats what's important ! It would be nice for you to put a few miles on her after all that work though... Be safe.

 

B

[Trainman]

Damn, what a waste !! I hope it was merciful and you gave her a nice funeral.

 

 

Point is, the Pathy will basically be ruined before it truely catches fire or explodes. All you can do is try to make sure that doesn't happen, then watch out for your own butt. Thats what's important ! It would be nice for you to put a few miles on her after all that work though... Be safe.

 

B

Insurance company pays for it

 

These fires can move very quickly. The one I mentioned was reported by a highlead yarding (logging) crew at about 2:00 PM about 3 km north of where they were. 20 minutes later, the crew was leaving and watching their tower burn up. It was an extreme, rank 8 fire that was moving at up to 10 km per hour. Can not fight that kind of fire, had to wait for a break in the weather, almost 3 weeks.

 

Any time I hear of these kinds of fires, I always hope everyone is OK. Stuff can be replaced, people can not.

[FLApathy]

yeah, wild fires are highly unpredicable and no u cannot put them out, u can contain them, the wind that they create is sometimes more than a hurricane which sucks in a nice amount of fresh new air, wild fires are not the thing to mess with, if u google wild fire firefighter deaths and read how they died u will find that most died running from the fire, there was one last year, she died 3 feet from the safe zone, a paved road where they could deply the fire sheilds

[vidro]

These fires have already literally wiped out 2 smaller communities.

It's farming and ranching in this part of the country and when your crops burn down or your cows get torched before you sell them it's hard to pay the bills. At the same time the crops and cows are irrelevant when you see fires annihilate whole towns.

I was thinking of those collectable items that at one time I thought would be worth some thing, items like old fishing lures, baseball cards things that I now classify as "stuff". One spark and their gone, one good flood and most things are not salvageable.

I think I'll start selling off all my "stuff" and buy me a lift kit.

 

Any body interested in a Robin Yount rookie card? Mike Schmidt 2nd yr card? Got many others.

[88pathoffroad]

Depending on where the fire is originating, the gas will boil inside the tank, overpressurize the filler hose and then start puking fumes out the filler hose, which will catch on fire rather quickly, burning the hose and letting the gas boil over unhindered.