Reply #32: Despite what you have heard

[One_Life_To_Give]

Yes, you should never pour water onto a flammable liquid fire. But that prohibition does not hold for firefighters. There are risks but it does work quite well. Especially when you concider that unluke your 5 Gal/minute garden hose a standard 1-3/4in handline can easily dispense 175 Gal/minute or more.

So while it would be easy to accidently push the fire back into your face by using water on it. For a professional the rules are somewhat different. Also without having seen any images of what is happening, water serves several functions. It can be used to cool the thermal column, cool adjacent materials that might ignite, cool hot metal that may be reigniting the flammable liquid or to act as a radiant heat shield and/or provide airflow.