Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpfcso!hpfcbig!jenings
From: jenings@hpfcbig.SDE.HP.COM (Byron Jenings)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: oil well fires and shuttle tiles
Message-ID: <6530005@hpfcbig.SDE.HP.COM>
Date: 25 Mar 91 19:50:10 GMT
References: <1991Mar14.151130.3822@welch.jhu.edu>
Organization: HP SESD, Fort Collins, CO
Lines: 17


 Bill Kyle <bill@dmntor.UUCP> writes:
|Sorry....this is not a candle that we are trying to put out. The heat and
|the force of the flames would destroy any apparatus being lowered onto the
|flames. 

Just saw footage on CNN of somebody doing exactly this.  They lowered
a pipe over a burning well to move the flames well above ground level.
Then, they build a building around the pipe with metal roofing,
flooded the place with fire hoses [for cooling, not fire-fighting],
and then sent in the repair crews to work in the shed while the fire
was burning.

They said they only put the fire out when they were done, since it
would be dangerous to not have it burning.  Putting out the fire was
the easiest part of the process, repairing the plumbing is the
difficult part.