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.... Just flee.
I was pondering the traditional fire evacuation model the other day. I'm supposed to grab a pair of shoes, the file box containing important records, and a couple of the most valuable items in the house and get the hell out, all before succumbing to smoke inhalation.
Why do all
that, when I could just get myself safely out, because I keep all that stuff queued up in a capsule in the Fire Escape Trebuchet?
The device is stored in an area where the projectile will pass through a window when launched. Curtains and glass are irrelevant.
The heat sensors that launch the one time use payload are set to go at a safe margin over what a hot afternoon in the apartment might get up to. You'd want a warning label on the window so the firefighters would know not to stand in front of it.
[link]
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How about a kind of inverse trebuchet which incorporates everything
except the file box, the shoes, and your bed? |
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Then, when a fire is detected, it can be automatically flung to a safe
distance, perhaps without even disturbing your night's sleep. |
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What will inevitably happen is that the sun, shining
through a window onto the heat-detector will set off
the trebuchet, flinging all your valuables through
your window into a nearby river, or into your
neighbour's house, which actually *is* on fire. |
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Much as trebuchets represent a widely-admired, highly entertaining and and useful
branch of ballitics, we consider that this idea displays an unacceptable deficiency of reckless, dangerous and highly inadvisable employment of pyrotechnics, propellants and explosives. |
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Either a load-carrying rocket, or a large calibre mortar, would seem to suit the task admirably, the fire itself serving to ignite the relevant fuse train. |
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Just snuff out the oxygen in the room for awhile. Problem
solved. |
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