Why Los Angeles turned pink after the fires | EUROtoday

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Because Los Angeles, devastated by fires, finds itself coated in a pink substance? This is the well-known one Phos-Chekmost likely the flame retardant most widespread on the planet, which for a couple of days has been sprayed on the town by massive planes and about twenty helicopters.

(AP Photo/Ty ONeil)

The pink dye

Il The pink colour helps pilots to rapidly acknowledge areas which have already been sprayed and people nonetheless to be “worked on”. The Phos-Chek, used for the reason that early Sixties, removes oxygen from the flames, delaying combustion.

It is produced by the American Perimeter with numerous chemical substances together with ammonium polyphosphate, which doesn’t evaporate simply and stays on the supplies longer than water. While the pink dye, quite the opposite, disappears after a couple of days of publicity to the solar and might nonetheless be washed.

(AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

The composition of the Phos-Check

At the middle of controversy a couple of years in the past for a research by the University of Southern California in Los Angeles which revealed how it is usually produced with small components of metals dangerous to well being (together with chromium and cadmium), the Phos-Chek represents one of many weapons accessible to California firefighters to attempt to comprise the flames, which triggered at the least 24 victims and destroyed 12 thousand constructions, forcing the authorities to evacuate 150 thousand individuals.

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