excerpt from an article which appeared in Starfleet Fire Engineering.
Fire aboard starships
is not an easy matter of opening the hatches and letting the fire “vent” out into space, nor is it handled easily by a force field containing the fire until it goes “out”.
Why doesn’t a force field work?
Actually a force field does work it will keep the fire from spreading, but it will not allow the heat and gases built from the fire to escape thus the field will in effect create a perfect backdraft situation and once the field is dropped it will cause an instant reigniting of the fire causing much more damage and danger to responders. While the field is of undoubted importance when dealing with small fires such as what one would encounter in a trash receptacle it is of no use when dealing with a large room and content fire of the massive damage caused by natural and/or combat related damage. Much like the old fire extinguisher of earth the force field fire suppression system is but the first link in the chain of dealing with disaster not an end.
So why doesn’t venting work?
Again it will work but it will often cause such structural damage to the vessel that it will hinder if not prevent any rescue effort from taking place! In addition there is a sense of proportion to be dealt with here. If you are dealing with a simple unoccupied stateroom located along the ships outer perimeter does it make sense to lose an entire deck or sector of a ship with all it important subsystems and crew quarters? I think not. The mission of emergency response has and always will be to prevent further damage not cause. By venting an area ship to space we are in effect reverting back to using gunpowder to destroy the buildings around the fire!
I remember once talking to an old chief engineer about ship venting and he related a story to me that I think illustrates the point quite well. He mentioned once having to deal with a fire located on a relatively new ship’s fifth deck, mid way between the center and the bow of the ship’s primary hull. When he informed the captain of the situation the captain told him to just vent the effected area. When the engineer mentioned that to vent the ship would mean the loss of several crew areas and labs as well as some structural strength he brushed the engineers suggestion off and ordered the venting done. Consequently the ship suffered large amounts of subsidiary damage and the captain was removed from command because the ship lost such structural stability in the venting that it was retired from service shortly there after!
It has taken Starfleet Engineering more then a century to finally get it through Starship captains head’s that venting is not the first recourse in dealing with fire aboard a starship, nor should they expect the fire suppression force fields to handle all situations either.
So if both force fields and venting are not the answer what is?
SFED (Starfleet Fire Engineering Division) have argued for decades that reliance on purely power generated methods of dealing with starship fires is both dangerous and impratical. Force fields require huge amounts of power, power which is prone to failure under the stress of fire operations. We have argued for a return to compartmentalization of starships to lesson the amount of damage possible venting my cause and to dedicated manual fire fighting systems aboard starships. ASDB has constantly refused these arguments citing that total failure of power systems is rare and nearly unheard of. That was before the Dominion War.
Throughout the war countless ships sustained damage which caused all power system to go off line resulting in huge number of casualties. Admiral Ross in his report on the operations along the Bajoran front remarked that enhanced damage control procedures on starships would have resulted in fewer casualties. Captain Sisko, Ross’s operations officer, remarked several times during the war on newly arriving starships lack of training in even basic damage control procedures.
Most recently The chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise remarked that the damage suffered to the Enterprise E by her ramming in the recent events with the Romulans could have been minimized if better Damage control had been in effect and compartmentalization along the lines of locking hatches and doors had been in place which would have prevented several areas of the ship from being vented and exposed to the vacuum of space.
Fire fighting Equipment
Besides Fire extinguishers and the ever present Force fields what equipment should be used aboard starships. First each deck should be equipped with a small 1000 gallon self powered water/foam replication unit. These units have been in use on Starbases for many years and have a small contained power unit and are able to pump the water up to a standard 250 gpm which is proper for all handlines. These units are more then able to handle small room and content fires in cause if the large overhead suppression systems fail. All members of Damage Control teams should receive at a minimum of 88 hours of starship firefighting essentials BEFORE assignment and DC team leaders should have attend advanced courses regularly during there assignment at any number of facilities located in the Federation as while as conducting training exercise in the ship’s holodecks.
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