Roam

Can carpet-bombing wildfires with Carbon Dioxide munitions be used to extinguish them? Let's investigate!

To begin with: what is a Carbon Dioxide bomb? Also called a "dry ice bomb", it is created by sealing frozen Carbon Dioxide within an airtight container. As the contents of the container sublime and fill it with gaseous CO2, the pressure gradually builds until it ruptures, creating a massive explosion that deposits the substance across its surroundings.

The mechanism is simple. Aboard a large plane, the dry ice is placed inside each bomb's container. Once over the fire, the bombs are sealed, before being released and dropped upon the flames below.

There are if course a couple problems with this approach to firefighting. The first is that dry ice bombs are notoriously unpredictable, and it is difficult to know specifically when they will explode. This can be fixed by dropping them within seconds of having armed them, and letting them explode well after contact with the ground.

The second problem is the toxic nature of Carbon Dioxide. If inadvertently inhaled, it can cause death by asphyxiation in a very short amount of time. Thus, the handling of such munitions comes with extreme risks to all hands involved.

However, barring those two difficulties, the technology could prove effective. Carbon Dioxide is one of the products of fire, as the Carbon-rich fuel being consumed and mixed with Oxygen is converted into the molecule. As such, just as dowsing fire with water effectively extinguishes it, so too does CO2.

Anyways, this is simply another brainstorming session of mine, to be hopefully expanded upon by subsequent practitioners of science.