manufactured by ELIDE FIRE
"Phanawatnan Kaimart invented the Kaimart® Fire Extinguishing Ball after the fire incident at Royal Jomtien Resort Hotel, which killed nearly 100 people."."
on Kaimart® Fire Extinguishing Ball, March 2016
Background
In 1997, Mr. Phanawatnan Kaimart bared witness to a devastating fire that broke out in the Royal Jomtien Hotel in Pattaya, Thailand. Mr. Phanawatnan Kaimart was deeply saddened by the lives he saw lost in the event and was inspired to develop a better way to fight fire.
When a fire occurs, in the first four minutes the temperatures exceed 750 degrees (400 degrees Celsius). Within those four minutes the fire starts rapidly accelerating in both temperature and area from all directions.
After 8 minutes the fire will already be way way out of hand for any untrained person to extinguish it by his or herself. If someone is looking to extinguish that fire with a traditional extinguisher the window of time they have is very sensitive, plus they are forced to be no further than five feet from the fire to produce any sort of result.
With this in mind, Mr. Kaimart began thinking of a device that could be either activated automatically or from a safe distance by untrained civilians. From these needs, Elide Fireball was born.
The problem with traditional fire extinguishers
Generally, they are heavy and user needs to get closer than five feet of the fire to properly extinguish it. Moreover, one must spray for over 16 seconds at the fire base to thoroughly spread the extinguishing foam such that it eliminates the threat. If the fire is growing, and user has trouble with the extinguisher he could find himself in a life threatening situation. There are 3 stages of the fire ignition process;
Incipient Stage. After ignition only in the first 4 minutes can a fire be extinguished by a traditional fire extinguisher typically available to civilians.
Middle Stage. After the first 4 – 8 minutes, the fire's temperature increases to over 750 degrees (400 degree Celsius) and normal fire extinguishers can be used only by trained professionals as the window to devastation begins to get ever more bleak.
High Level Stage. At after 8 minutes the flame has reached over 1000 degrees (600 degrees Celsius), the fire can spread in any direction rapidly. The firefighter, in this case, will need to be trained and experienced and have the necessary equipment to extinguish fire.
With this in mind, the KAIMART® extinguishing ball was born.
How is fire born?
Fire is the production of a flame and the visible degradation of a body by an exothermic oxidation chemical reaction called "combustion".
Three factors are required for a fire to start: the oxidizer (oxygen from the air), the activation energy (a spark, for example) and the fuel (the material that burns). The chain reaction that leads to the fire occurs when all three factors are combined, with the required proportion and circumstances. In order to prevent or extinguish a fire, one of the above-mentioned factors must be removed. Fire extinguishers are designed to remove heat and oxygen or to build a barrier between fuel and oxygen, depending on the nature of the extinguishing agent contained.
Kaimart solves these issues by doing the following:
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The weight of Elide's device is less than three pounds and can be used intuitively without training.
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The users of Elide's device can be further than 10 feet from the fire allowing them to avoid high temperatures.
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Elide will squeal as to alert people that a fire has occurred.
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Elide can detonate automatically when in contact with fire, it does not need to be activated by a user.
Kaimart
Elide Fireball takes into consideration all of the stages of a life threatening fire and provides a product that can be used by anyone. The products key aspects have been delivered as an answer to it's substitutes shortcomings, making it the next logical evolution in civilian fire safety products.
