Fire at Spa..

[Dan Friel]

This is a pretty scary incident. What to do?? Keeping dumping powder on it until someone can get close to the kill switch?? Shows what a full tank of fuel can do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge_UW...eature=related

I love the marshal arriving at 47 seconds.. Armed with..

[motorsportdawn]

[Guinness2702]

Originally Posted by Dan Friel

I love the marshal arriving at 47 seconds.. Armed with..

It's a nightmare spending all day on the bank with not enough lunchbreak to go and get a spare, only for your lighter to run out after the first session. He was probably looking for a light!

[Woolley]

A funny moment in a messy incident. Seems to be the opposite problem to the Lambo last year - there they had no powder to knock it down, this one seems to have no foam to cool it. Nice big fire truck arrives carrying the wrong equipment, apparently.

Poor marshal arriving at the front of the car @ 20secs just as a full dose of powder arrives from the opposite direction is probably still in the toilet.

[Wet marshal]

Originally Posted by Woolley

Poor marshal arriving at the front of the car @ 20secs just as a full dose of powder arrives from the opposite direction is probably still in the toilet.

I remember this happening to me at Combe (a couple of seasons ago),when a Ferrari caught fire.

It was a windy day,and the fire was promptly put out by two Marshals,using dry powder then foam.

It was later on that My Weight watchers diet was put to the test!!

[stevebrown]

The bit at 52sec where it took hold again must have been when he went to stub it out.

Reminds me of Richard Dean's Viper a Silverstone in '98 (two fire trucks & 16 bottles, i think) & the Caddy at Le Mans a few years later. I saw the data logger off the Caddy, a melted mass of metal and the engineers still got data off it.

[Hepatic]

thanks must go to the driver who obviously just legged it without pulling a killswitch on the way out. can't say there is an easy way to deal with something like that, sometimes you just have to let the fuel burn or risk injury trying to put it out :/

[Woolley]

Originally Posted by Hepatic

thanks must go to the driver who obviously just legged it without pulling a killswitch on the way out

To be fair, I'm not sure it would be at the front of my mind either, getting out of that. I'd probably be on the bank thinking 'I know what I should have done'.

[Hubble]

Originally Posted by Woolley

To be fair, I'm not sure it would be at the front of my mind either, getting out of that. I'd probably be on the bank thinking 'I know what I should have done'.

+1

[Steve Fox]

They should have fitted an air bottle next to the battery, that would switch the juice off
Seriously though, this does show an argument for some kind of automatic cut off, even a simple one would work in this situation, Just a thermal fuse in the engine bay would have done the trick.

[gachjoel]

But wasn't it a broken fuel line, so hitting the kill switch might have not solved the problem..
but it's good training

[Guinness2702]

Originally Posted by Woolley

To be fair, I'm not sure it would be at the front of my mind either, getting out of that. I'd probably be on the bank thinking 'I know what I should have done'.

Originally Posted by Hubble

+1

In fact, after his fire at Snett this weekend, Alex Macdowall said that he was so concerned about the fire that he "forgot to get out of the car and .... my dad dragged me out"

[Alan.F]

Originally Posted by Steve Fox

They should have fitted an air bottle next to the battery, that would switch the juice off
Seriously though, this does show an argument for some kind of automatic cut off, even a simple one would work in this situation, Just a thermal fuse in the engine bay would have done the trick.

You know how they have a coms wire attached to them, couldnt they have som sort of device that attaches to the driver so when he gets out it pulls the trip switch automaticly ?

[NewYankee01]

incidents like this at gp venues makes you think were does all the top standard marshals go to when their home gp isnt on.

[deley]

Originally Posted by NewYankee01

incidents like this at gp venues makes you think were does all the top standard marshals go to when their home gp isnt on.

no it doesn't as
a) GP's tend to gather marshals in from all over the place who may not normally be available for other meetings at the venue
b) some GP venues these days have insufficient other meetings to maintain quality
c) GP meets usually have higher marshal coverage than other meetings
etc
etc

and I suspect that your comment that a "GP venue" doesn't have "top standard marshals" when there isn't a GP will not go down well with many of your colleagues

[Hepatic]

Originally Posted by Alan.F

You know how they have a coms wire attached to them, couldnt they have som sort of device that attaches to the driver so when he gets out it pulls the trip switch automaticly ?

Nope because they would be screwed when it came to a driver change.

I wasn't saying the drivers top priority should have been the electrics but if it was a broken line and the fuel pump is still running then it would have certainly helped. A thermal switch sounds like a much easier way of cutting power in such circumstances.

[Guinness2702]

Originally Posted by NewYankee01

were does all the top standard marshals go to when their home gp isnt on.

We do a variety of circuits and events. We don't just do one circuit, because that's where the GP is. Indeed, ensuring that we have an ongoing variety of experience at different levels of competition and in different places helps to ensure that we maintain those "top standards"

HTH.

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by Hepatic

.....I wasn't saying the drivers top priority should have been the electrics but if it was a broken line and the fuel pump is still running then it would have certainly helped. .....

v good point; surely the driver's #1 priority should have been the extinguisher pull, #2 priority the elec cutoff. With intelligent car prep and siting these two can be activated in about 2 seconds with the left hand, while the right undoes the seat buckle prior to exiting the vehicle.
It shouldn't need more rules and more expensive parts, just common sense.

[westfieldbend]

Very similar to Dave Cockells escort fire at brands hatch in June.

[JimW]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

v good point; surely the driver's #1 priority should have been the extinguisher pull, #2 priority the elec cutoff. With intelligent car prep and siting these two can be activated in about 2 seconds with the left hand, while the right undoes the seat buckle prior to exiting the vehicle.
It shouldn't need more rules and more expensive parts, just common sense.

Nah. Priorities 1 to 10 - Get the **** out of here. Once out and if the driver is not too warm, pull any switches he feels like.

Driver safe and out, only remaining problem is financial. Anyway the marshals would benefit from the practice.

Two seconds is too long to sit in a fire.

Regards

Jim

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by JimW

Nah. Priorities 1 to 10 - Get the **** out of here. Once out and if the driver is not too warm, pull any switches he feels like.
Driver safe and out, only remaining problem is financial. Anyway the marshals would benefit from the practice.
Two seconds is too long to sit in a fire.
Regards
Jim

...and how exactly does one exit without first undoing the belts?
as I said:....can be activated in about 2 seconds with the left hand, while the right undoes the seat buckle....

[aland]

i dont suppose it would be possible for the makers of the inbuilt fire suppression systems to develop a method where if the temp in the engine bay got beyond a certain level the electrics got cut and inbuilt extinguisher deployed. I know there was a system on the old railway diesel units that worked in that way, bit of stuff called iirc pyrocord, once it burnt through the halon bottles deployed

on the alex mcdowall/chevvy incident it concerned me how quick fire appeared in the footwells, surely the bulkhead should withstand fire for at least 20 seconds

[NewYankee01]

Originally Posted by deley

and I suspect that your comment that a "GP venue" doesn't have "top standard marshals" when there isn't a GP will not go down well with many of your colleagues

you know what i meant, i bet you secretly hold that view and theres no way nobody has ever not critiscised in a constructive way or not of officials at an event or on tenths sometime or another, i didnt mean that in a demeaning way. my comment was worded differently but even on this thread people are basically saying the same as me. are you telling me a meeting like this that may have had loads of trainees in are ALL of a good standard, they just havent been given the experience yet to be of a good and efficient standard, they will get there you are not going to let a trainee with 1/2, 1/2/3/4 meetings under theyre belt do a gp because they are not up to STANDARD as deemed by our msa for this country, other marshals and sometimes and most times if theyre old and mature enough themselves...

[gachjoel]

Originally Posted by MGDavid

...and how exactly does one exit without first undoing the belts?
as I said:....can be activated in about 2 seconds with the left hand, while the right undoes the seat buckle....

i think the driver would be more of.....right hand does buckles..left hand opens door

[MGDavid]

Originally Posted by gachjoel

i think the driver would be more of.....right hand does buckles..left hand opens door

virtually impossible in a RHD car which is what I was driving when I was in a comparable position; granted the yellow thing in the youtube clip is LHD.