BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

Heavy emphasis on the 'could' if you ask me.

ANAHEIM, March 27, 2011 — A curtain of flame halts firefighters trying to rescue a family inside a burning home. One with a special backpack steps to the front, points a wand at the flame, and shoots a beam of electricity that opens a path through the flame for the others to pass and lead the family to safety.
Scientists today described a discovery that could underpin a new genre of fire-fighting devices, including sprinkler systems that suppress fires not with water, but with zaps of electric current, without soaking and irreparably damaging the contents of a home, business, or other structure. Reporting at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Ludovico Cademartiri, Ph.D., and his colleagues in the group of George M. Whitesides, Ph.D., at Harvard University, picked up on a 200-year-old observation that electricity can affect the shape of flames, making flames bend, twist, turn, flicker, and even snuffing them out. However, precious little research had been done over the years on the phenomenon.

Read more
http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/c ... 176da17080

[Shadowwolf]

Yes but if the sprinkler system is accidentally tripped or misused you just get wet, with this you fry?

[Healerman]

Think about the possibilities. An "electric fence" around properties in areas prone to forest or bush fires. Fire appliances fitted with suppressors being able to drive through walls of flame to reach the seat of the fire.

Yes but if the sprinkler system is accidentally tripped or misused you just get wet, with this you fry?

Yes, but consider it's use in place of Halon gas suppression systems. You will at least be able to breathe.