Fighting Fires With Solar Panels

The massive fires raging in california are being blamed squarely on climate change.

Fighting fires with solar panels.

Firefighters attempting to extinguish a fire in a house outfitted with solar panels can also cover the arrays with heavy tarps limiting their exposure to light so that these light sensitive cells do not become energized. Solar plays an important role offering an alternative infrastructure of energy generation and distribution that will protect vulnerable communities from different threats of fire and disaster. Alongside ominous photographs of orange skies the front page of the sunday los angeles times blared. Southern californians will acutely remember the witch guejito and rice fires of 2007 which occurred in san diego.

When fire departments arrive to a house fire where solar panels are interconnected to the power grid they have two options to kill the power on your solar panels and both ways are very quick. This all changed after 1900 when fire suppression became the norm and fire declined precipitously. Identify the system if possible. Locate the central electrical system control panel photo 10 if you need to disconnect circuits.

Assume every electrical circuit is live even if you. The first way is by turning off your inverter by a simple flip of the switch located on the front panel see picture below. Solar panels are everywhere from tiny squares powering roadside signs to rooftops shining with panels harvesting sunlight for electricity but they are presenting new challenges. In laboratory based fire tests of roof assemblies 1 2 the maximum allowable fire spread is between approximately 20 and 40 ft 2 1 9 and 3 7 m 2 depending on whether an a b or c rating is desired.

In the last half of the 20th century only about 250 000 acres burned annually.