RIP Us Firefighters - surely today we can do more

[Super Nova]

In this day and age why haven't built some sort of fireproof portable safe house for fire-fighters in this situation so that when all is lost they can retreat to a device/portable bunker that will enable them to survive for a few hours while the front of a fire passes. This was an expert squad and for them to die without something to retreat to is just a bloody disgrace. It's a risky business and these guys knew their stuff however fires are not predictable.

This is a challenge to some inventor to create something that is portable, quick to assemble. Aussie Fire-fighters needs something like this as well.

Arizona fire: 19 firefighters killed battling forest blaze
Nineteen firefighters have been killed while battling a wildfire in central Arizona, in the worst incident of its kind that the United States has seen for eighty years.
The men - members of a specially trained "hotshot" crew - were fighting a ferocious blaze threatening the town of Yarnell when they were overcome by the flames.

The group had apparently been digging a fire line to try and halt the spread of the fire but found themselves trapped. The men were forced to deploy their fire shelters - tent-like structures meant to shield them from flames and heat - but were nevertheless consumed by the blaze.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... blaze.html

[Chard]

In this day and age why haven't built some sort of fireproof portable safe house for fire-fighters in this situation so that when all is lost they can retreat to a device/portable bunker that will enable them to survive for a few hours while the front of a fire passes.

They do have such devices, the 19 firefighters that died had them, they attempted to use them, and the fire was just to hot. Hell, they even show a picture of them training with the shelters in the artile you posted. The problem is those shelters are great at handling radiated heat, but they're terrible at conducted heat, and they do nothing for heat dissipation. You can be fire proof all you like, but if you can't cool down and dump heat you will die.