Two dead at U.S. Antarctic station
An accident of some kind has apparently killed two individuals at the U.S. McMurdo station in Antarctica yesterday.
The National Science Foundation says two technicians working on a fire-suppression system at an Antarctica scientific station were found unconscious and died.
The foundation said Wednesday the two had been working in a building at McMurdo Station, which is on Ross Island. It says they were found on the floor by a helicopter pilot who had landed after spotting what appeared to be smoke from the building.
Nothing more is as yet known.
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An accident of some kind has apparently killed two individuals at the U.S. McMurdo station in Antarctica yesterday.
The National Science Foundation says two technicians working on a fire-suppression system at an Antarctica scientific station were found unconscious and died.
The foundation said Wednesday the two had been working in a building at McMurdo Station, which is on Ross Island. It says they were found on the floor by a helicopter pilot who had landed after spotting what appeared to be smoke from the building.
Nothing more is as yet known.
I must unfortunately ask you for your financial support because I do not depend on ads and rely entirely on the generosity of readers to keep Behind the Black running. You can either make a one time donation for whatever amount you wish, or you sign up for a monthly subscription ranging from $2 to $15 through Paypal or $3 to $50 through Patreon.
Your support will allow me to continue covering science and culture as I have for the past twenty years, independent and free from any outside influence.
Your support is even more essential to me because I not only keep this site free from advertisements, I do not use the corrupt social media companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to promote my work. I depend wholly on the direct support of my readers.
You can provide that support to Behind The Black with a contribution via Patreon or PayPal. To use Patreon, go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. For PayPal click one of the following buttons:
If Patreon or Paypal don't work for you, you can support Behind The Black directly by sending your donation by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman, to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
Or you can donate by using Zelle through your bank. You will need to give my name and email address (found at the bottom of the "About" page). The best part of this electronic option is that no fees will be deducted! What you donate will be what I receive.
Hmmm, did they see a dog running around?
This unfortunately sounds like a malfunction or a misfiring of the system that they were installing, if I were to take a wild guess. Fire suppression systems starve fire of oxygen and any thing else that is enveloped by it.
????
Halon
Are there not far better alternates to halon?
I forget the product name (Novek?) but I remember a product that suppressed the fire but did not remove the all the O2. It was also nonconductive- you could submerse a laptop in it without fear of shorting it out.
Perhaps halon is required in the cold of Antarctica but the risks are well known and I think alternatives exist.
Wodun
good one.
Chris–
(thanks for that tidbit!)
here we go…. ( it’s a fluoroketone, “developed as a halon replacement and hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) alternative.” )
“3M Brand Novec 1230” Fire Protection Fluid
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/novec-us/applications/fire-suppression/
(with embedded video)
“Novec 1230 fluid extinguishes a fire before it starts by rapidly removing heat. In a typical total flooding system, the fluid is stored as a liquid in cylinders pressurized with nitrogen. Automatic detection sensors trigger release when the fire is at the incipient stage, extinguishing it in mere seconds. Novec 1230 fluid evaporates 50 times faster than water. In fact, you could soak a paperback book in a bath of Novec 1230 fluid and within a minute, pick it up and read where you left off.”
“The Thing” (1951)
-excerpt-
https://youtu.be/tp1UPGesJCE
1:46