Fire extinguishers – Apparatus which isolates flames from non-burning area
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-31
2004-03-09
Nguyen, Dinh Q. (Department: 3752)
Fire extinguishers
Apparatus which isolates flames from non-burning area
C169S045000, C169S054000, C056S006000, C056S014700, C056S014200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06702032
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for cutting and chopping brush and of containing ground fires.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Ground fires consume millions of acres of wilderness annually. In 1999, the National Interagency Fire Center reported that over five million acres of land were burnt and that the federal government spent over a half billion dollars to suppress wilderness fires. In 2000, over 6.3 million acres of wilderness h have been burnt and the U.S. Congress has budgeted 638 million dollars to cover the direct cost incurred suppressing and ground fires, and the total cost is expected to exceed 1 billion dollars in 2000.
Typically, brush, which includes bushes, vines, small trees and other low to midheight vegetation, is the fuel source of ground fires. Large trees usually are resistant to low lying ground fires, provided the ground fire is not hot enough to ignite the canopy of the large tree. When the ground vegetation is dry, as frequently happens during the summer months, ground fires are capable of burning extremely hot and fast.
Firebreaks are generally made by either ground crews using axes, hoes, and other equipment, to manually remove brush, or by mechanical means such as a tractor or a bulldozer. When a tractor is used to create a firebreak, the tractor pulls a plow through the brush and the ground in which the brush is growing, and the surface earth and the brush are turned over so that the brush becomes substantially covered by a layer of dirt. Thus, when a ground fire reaches the firebreak, the combustible material, the foliage of the brush, is essentially buried and the fire is contained by the firebreak. Bulldozers are used in a similar manner to create firebreaks. A bulldozer with an attached blade uses the blade to simply scrape away a portion of the topsoil and the brush growing in the ground as the bulldozer moves forward. In its wake, the bulldozer leaves a strip of land devoid of brush, so that a ground fire is contained by the firebreak.
While firebreaks are generally effective in containing ground fires there are problems associated with them. For example, because firebreaks are essentially bare ground devoid of vegetation they are prone to water erosion, thereby polluting nearby streams, creeks, rivers, etc. and causing other environmental damage associated with water erosion. In addition, it is not easy or quick to make a firebreak, whether it is made manually or by mechanical means, such as by a tractor. Depending upon the terrain, it may take a tractor an hour to create a ¾ of a mile firebreak. In addition to being slow, tractors and bulldozers generally are heavy pieces of equipment that are not easily transported from a central location to an area in which it is desired to build a firebreak in the path of a fire. Therefore, there is a need for an apparatus and a method for containing ground fires and for addressing these and other related problems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Briefly described, the present invention comprises a method and an improved apparatus for cutting and chopping low to mid height vegetation, referred to as brush, and forming breaks in the brush for suppressing and containing ground fires. A ground fire can be contained and suppressed behind a strip of land in which bushes, brush, small trees, and other vegetation growing in the strip of land have been transformed from its natural state into generally particles disposed substantially flat on the ground. The brush, when cut and chopped, tends to lie low on the ground, and the low lying chopped vegetation does not lie high enough from the ground to provide air space between the cut chopped vegetation and the ground to allow a flow of air and its oxygen to support combustion of or leaping flames from the chopped vegetation. To form brush into chopped vegetation, a self propelled apparatus is guided, or driven, through the brush. As the apparatus moves forward it engages brush in its path, and the apparatus has a cutting means that cuts the engaged brush proximal to the ground. The cut brush is urged inwardly toward the center of the apparatus by the cutting means and is re-cut as the apparatus moves forward. The re-cut pieces are generally particles that are deposited on and lay substantially flat on the ground. The root system of the cut brush remains essentially undisturbed by the apparatus. The strip of land having the brush cut and chopped is for the purposes of this disclosure known as a fuelbreak. For the purposes of this disclosure, the chopped vegetation is vegetation that has been cut from the ground and re-cut into pieces that lay generally flat on the ground. The chopped vegetation is of varying size and shape depending upon both the type of vegetation and the part of the vegetation that the apparatus has chopped. Generally, as will be described in greater detail herein below, chopped pieces can be small pieces such as twigs, leaves, grasses, etc., or large pieces such as tree trunks, branches, limbs, etc. The large pieces, such as a tree trunk, are cut in such a manner that branches growing from the trunk are chopped off of the trunk so that the trunk will lie flat on the ground. Similarly, branches having smaller branches growing therefrom are cut so that the smaller branches are generally chopped therefrom so that the branch will lie flat on the ground. Thus, the fuelbreak is typically covered by chopped vegetation that includes both small and large particles.
Even though a fuelbreak is not devoid of vegetation, as a firebreak might be, a fire is easily contained by fire fighters behind a fuelbreak. Because the fuel source, the vegetation, in a fuelbreak has been cut and re-cut so that it lies substantially flat on the ground, air does not easily reach the re-cut vegetation when it is ignited. Thus, a fire might not occur in a fuel break, or when a fire reaches a fuelbreak and ignites the chopped vegetation, the fire generally is transformed from a fast moving, hot burning fire into a cooler smoldering fire that is easily extinguished by fire fighters.
A fuelbreak has advantages over firebreaks for containing ground fires. One advantage of a fuelbreak is that the roots of the cut vegetation remain substantially undisturbed during the process of making the fuelbreak. Thus, with the root system of the cut vegetation intact, a fuelbreak is not prone to water erosion because the roots stabilize the ground, thereby mitigating the harmful effects to the environment associated with a firebreak.
In addition, when a firebreak is made in soft, loose, sandy soil, such as sugar sand, the firebreak is generally impassable to subsequent vehicles. Whereas, with a fuelbreak the ground has not been plowed, or scraped, and consequently, the ground which is stabilized by the roots of the cut vegetation and covered by a layer of the cut vegetation is generally firm enough to support subsequent vehicles. The cut brush forms a blanket, or layer, of tractionable material that helps prevent a subsequent vehicle from becoming stuck in the loose sandy soil, or sugar sand. Other features and advantages of a fuelbreak will be discussed in greater detail hereinbelow.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the apparatus for making a fuelbreak is a ground clearing cutter which includes a rear mounted skid steer riding tractor, described in greater detail hereinbelow. The preferred apparatus is a distinct improvement over bulldozers and tractors that pull a plow for an apparatus used in containing ground fires. Frequently, a ground fire will occur in a remote region, and fire fighting equipment and personnel must be transported to the remote region to combat the ground fire. In comparison to bulldozers and tractors having a plow, the preferred apparatus is generally light weight and is easily and rapidly transported on a small truck, or a small trailer pulled by vehicle such as a pickup truck, from a central location to the remote region for deployment against the ground fire, whereas a bulldozer, for example, is normally transported on a
Nguyen Dinh Q.
Thomas Kayden Horstemeyer & Risley
LandOfFree
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