Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Tradeoffs. The fire will burn much better at 1000' than at FL250.
But like you say, if it's a big load of Li, then the O2 partial pressure isn't going to matter much either way. If it were me, and there was no Li onboard, I'd stay at 250... you can breath with the mask but a normal fire really can't.
True, the fire will probably will burn better at 1000agl, but I believe its going to burn regardless. If there are findings out there that cargo fires extinguished on their own by oxygen starvation, I'd feel a bit better, I just haven't heard of this happening.
With no Li onboard, wouldn't you be better staying at cruise altitude (FL330?), or climbing as high as possible, to starve the fire? If FL250 is good, then FL370 is great. Obviously we are talking no pax here, and you are going to have to see a doc for the physiological impact, but if you are putting ALL your faith in oxygen-starving a fire, you might as well go all in and climb.
As an aside, how do you know you don't have any Li onboard? Crew bus driver says there's a lot of "undeclared" DG.