As a prepared home defender, firearm owner, are you prepared for the suppression of hostile fire?

JTHunter…a challenge in dealing with contemporary rioters would be fires being started on opposite sides of the home and/or simultaneously if it is a substantial crazed mob. One would suppose manually switching-on lawn sprinklers could help to dissuade some people, yet that does not truly protect the building itself.

I get a new house if you burn it down. Please do.

This is complicated sledding.

Extinguishing structure fires is not a casual endeavor. Accelerate-assisted fires are going to resist being put out with a simple, hand-held, extinguisher. And, you are generally looking at needing an extinguisher per "molotov," too. That's presuming nothing else in/on the structure "catches" as well.

Involved structure fires require substantially more infrastructure than a simple extinguisher. And, that infrastructure wants considerable training.

Rural folks could pull a hitch or two with the VFD and be a bit more prepared--but, you still have the problem of trying to cope with a technically precises sort of response to one problem while also coping with goblins trying to make the problem worse.

Now, luckily, real-world "molotovs" are not nearly so dramatic as the hollywood versions. But, toting around a 2 or 3 pound extinguisher while trying to control a perimeter is not going to be easy.

Neither is fitting up your house with an NFPA 13D suppression system (and unless you like in wildfire areas, you are going to boggle your designer by asking for exterior wall protection).

I've been to Fire Training School. Run Damage Control exercises on ships, too. I've no good answers, and I'm not entirely sure where I'd turn to find them, either. It bears thinking about.

Zerodefect said:

I get a new house if you burn it down. Please do.

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Your homeowner policy doesn't exclude "riots"?

This topic is not nearly as far-fetched as some of you apparently think. Living in the greater Pugetropolis (Puget Sound) area, where our rioters (excuse me, protesters) share an affinity with those in Portlandia for "molotov cocktails" and other improvised fire-starting methods when it comes to attacking vehicles, structures and occupied buildings, I have no doubt that if the civil unrest widens, apartments and houses can become victim to this "new" old style of attack.

old lady new shooter said:

Your homeowner policy doesn't exclude "riots"?

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Nope. That's covered. I don't live in a ghetto.

My neighbors would drop them long before they would be within bottle throwing range though. Everybody in the burbs knows where the line is.

Fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems aren't designed to put out fires... their job is to get you out of the fire.

Sure, if you could figure out what direction the shot came from.

Good luck with that officer. I didn't see a thing.

Welcome to the real world.

There was people lined up during the spring "protests". Every house on alert. The PD was clear that the protestors stay within the "permitted downtown area" for their own protection.

Nobody was marching south of it.

You can roll over and continue losing. Or stand your ground smartly. Your call.

After pondering on this some more, some of you folks need to be thinking about your own personal ROE. 3m windows are fine but fire can easily and effectively be set to many different areas of a home.

I live in a modular home which are known to go up like a Roman candle with the slightest bit of flame. If there's a mob of people outside looking like they're ready to throw fire Im not giving them the chance. I have plenty of fire extinguishers but they are not a defensive tool they are an emergency tool after the fact.

That being said, there's also the issue of whether or not we're still a lawful society at that point. We have seen several years of folks in various places across the country burning, looting and murdering with little to no resistance from LE or justice through the courts. Not to mention lack of govt intervention when there should be.

Just something to keep in mind when doing this kind of preparing.


ETA- I live in the sticks so its highly unlikely I would encounter anything like the above. Still I think about and prepare for it. You suburban/ city folks should probably take it a bit more serious.

Modern houses can be tough to light up. My GF's little sister tossed a cigarette on a dry pine tree up close to vinyl siding. Exactly the kind of dead tree you dont want up against a house.

Tree nuked and the siding melted for about 7' wide, up to the gutter. House should have gone up. Not sure why it didn't.

Regardless of if this fire suppression is necessary because of arson, appliance failure, or an act of God, I'd recommend people go out to a safe area, light a fire, and ask members of their family to use a fire extinguisher to put it out. The first place I worked at (R&D office building) did this every 2 years, and I was amazed how bad people where. We had the fire department there and they'd spray some kerosene on a concrete pad, when it was your turn in line you'd pick up the extinguisher and do your thing. But, even though these people had done this multiple times over their career, AND were watching the 50 or so people in front of them complete this task, a good 50% STILL always aimed the extinguisher at the flames and not the fuel AND never realized their mistake until one of the firemen told them to aim at the accelerate.

You may need so much water that you’d have water damage instead of fire damage. I’ve been in many houses that had fires, the whole place needed rebuilding. This is what insurance is for.

Zerodefect said:

I get a new house if you burn it down. Please do.

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Who is going to give you a new house?
Suing the folks, if caught for arson won't get you a new house.
Can one sue BLM?
Your property insurance certainly has a clause that relieves them of responsibility war or civil unrest.
Rioting. looting and burning is only a win for the rioters, looters and firebombers.

yeongjo said:

the rapidly expanding nature of a fire

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Yeah, and fire is "un-natural"--at least to human perception--in the way it propagates.

"Our" general experience is with small, controlled things like camp fires, that as slow and reluctant to catch fire, and want careful tending to keep going. And, that's actually on purpose, we want our deliberate fires to be controlled, and to "fail safe" to unlit.

Uncontrolled fires need more than one person to cope with (the fire services use the term "attack" deliberately for how they address fires).

SO, in our Original Premise here, one of the problems a single self defender faces versus a group threat are threat coming from multiple directions. Add in a fire--which will focus a person's attention, as well as overload the senses--and the number of extra "eyes" required multiplies along with the need for additional arms.

While writing all this, another issue occurs to me. One of the major dangers, an invisible one at that, and deadlier than flames--are the combustion products from fire. "Smoke inhalation" kills far, far more than actual flames. So, yet one more risk the home/self defender faces with fire are the combustion products.

Again, nothing leaps to mind as an adequate answer, short of living in the firehouse (and even then, they often leave the house empty to go on calls).

It is looking like comprehensively protecting a residential structure against arson would cost LOTS of money. I do like the idea of installing shatterproof film on the glass. Might try that approach on a single window just to see how it holds-up to sun, rain, heat, cold, wind, and blowing dust.

Defending myself against a mob of >80 arsonists is pretty low on the list of things I need to prepare for. I'm not really sure how you'd do that, but preparing for something like that would require resources dramatically disproportionate to the risk of it occurring where I live.

As mentioned earlier, some states do have use of deadly physical for in prevention of arson of an occupied structure;

Arizona Revised Statutes said:

13-405. Justification; use of deadly physical force

A. A person is justified in threatening or using deadly physical force against another:

1. If such person would be justified in threatening or using physical force against the other under section 13-404, and...
....

13-411. Justification; use of force in crime prevention; applicability

A. A person is justified in threatening or using both physical force and deadly physical force against another if and to the extent the person reasonably believes that physical force or deadly physical force is immediately necessary to prevent the other's commission of arson of an occupied structure under section 13-1704, burglary in the second or first degree under section 13-1507 or 13-1508, kidnapping under section 13-1304, manslaughter under section 13-1103, second or first degree murder under section 13-1104 or 13-1105, sexual conduct with a minor under section 13-1405, sexual assault under section 13-1406, child molestation under section 13-1410, armed robbery under section 13-1904 or aggravated assault under section 13-1204, subsection A, paragraphs 1 and 2...
...

13-1704. Arson of an occupied structure; classification

A. A person commits arson of an occupied structure by knowingly and unlawfully damaging an occupied structure by knowingly causing a fire or explosion.

B. Arson of an occupied structure is a class 2 felony."

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So, while the law is there, it's kind of short on details. Not being a lawyer, I might suggest if someone was within throwing range with a lit Molotov and the law abiding citizen had good reason to believe they were about to throw the illegal incendiary device, they might be within the law. However, I do not know of any case study evidence of this law being utilized to know how it has played out in a court room at this time.

Madcap_Magician said:

Defending myself against a mob of >80 arsonists is pretty low on the list of things I need to prepare for. I'm not really sure how you'd do that, but preparing for something like that would require resources dramatically disproportionate to the risk of it occurring where I live.

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If your neighbors are all as armed as you, it's a just a matter of a simply "block party".

Most of us where ready from our upstairs rooms. Some were stuck with an outside game plan.