Noob question: How to deal with big fires?

[Squirting Elephant]

I had 3 fires like that one:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=864166306

They usually start by a circuit problem in the power-wiring. An explosion, then 9+ large fires and they spread REALLY fast. Now if this happens in a wooden area or if you have wooden doors, it's game over. Or if this happens in your main storage room or your greenhouse during winter...

In the screenshot above the wooden door didn't burn down even though temperatures went over 1500 degrees (almost 2000 in screenshot, wow). But later I had another fire like that and it burned through the doors and my entire base was flattened... Had to reload a save... Even when it's at only 9 fires my colonists won't be able to put out the fire faster than it spreads...

So I okay I can limit fires by not building anything in wood, living in caves or building stone floors (takes forever to build and by then you already had several large fires). So there is no short-term option is there? If you get a big fire in early game and if you dislike caves, you are basically dead?

The only non-cave solution I know is: stone walls+floors+doors EVERYWHERE but it takes half a year at best for me to reach that stage... Also it seems that dirt & grass are super flameable.

[Squirting Elephant]

Also I'm glad that fire can't go through walls/roofs (it should at those temperatures). It should probably melt stone. Limestone (my walls) melt at 1399 degrees but in this game they never do.

[Brassqund]

Red bzz event are from overheat or rain on your battery,
yellow are random.

The explosion depend of the energy stock in your active batteries.
The more energy in them, the bigger the explosion...
so reducing them at the minimum reduce CONSIDERABLY the danger
of explosions.

Using stable energy sources and closing unused things that use electricity
help a lot reducing the energy needed... so the need of batteries.

Here what I do:
I put two batteries, sometime three which is always there, giving power to everything.
After that, I put three (or four) other batteries blocked by a switch.
When I got no power left, I put the switch on so my "secondery" set of batteries
to give the power needed. Once my secondery set of batteries are charged up
again, I put the swtich back to off.

Most of the time, my switch is at off...
so, if there is a bzzz event, the power of explosion
are only calculated on the energy on my primary batteries...
which is only two/three batteries.

Of course, you need a good source of energy...
But, without exageration, I NEVER got problem with fire in
my base. NEVER. Not even when my base is made in wood
(And I made multiple times end game with houses in wood.)

Putting firefoam popper near your power conduit could help.
(even if I rarely use them for that)

Talking about that, firefoam explosion work through walls.
So if you build one near a wall near the fire (in your freezer for example)
and activated manually, the explosion will extinguish the fire without risk.

Finally, all craftable floor don't burn.
Even the wood one. Good luck :p

[Squirting Elephant]

Finally, all craftable floor don't burn.
Even the wood one. Good luck :p

That makes... sense.... Anyway thanks so I'll just put down cheap wooden floors at first to prevent fire spreading like nuts through my base.

Also I didn't know I had to cool the battery rooms (explosions didn't occur here they occured at random power-cable-spots throughout my base)

[Brassqund]

Originally posted by Squirting Elephant:

Finally, all craftable floor don't burn.
Even the wood one. Good luck :p

That makes... sense.... Anyway thanks so I'll just put down cheap wooden floors at first to prevent fire spreading like nuts through my base.

Also I didn't know I had to cool the battery rooms (explosions didn't occur here they occured at random power-cable-spots throughout my base)

Batteries don't do heat (well, not with 3 of them, maybe with more)
but if for a reason or an other, there is too much heat
where they are, they do exploded. For example, fueled generator does a lot
of heat so you need to take it in consideration if you put them
in the same room as the batteries, specially on hot biome/season.

[GZstar]

I also do not really have big problems with fires any more but on my first games I also lost sometimes due to fire damage.

Do not load up too many batterys at once. Seperate the batteries if you think you need lots of them at least and shut some of them down. You also can deinstall them and they contain the energy. This way you also do not have to repair them all the time. Besides just do not put wires beside flameble stuff in the main storage. I also do like to built the wires in the walls (stone) and sometimes even built walls outside just to protect the wires.

My greenhouses are out of stone. A fire in a greenhouse sometimes really is not beatable but a crop desease has the same effect like a burned down field. This should not be a real problem. The greenhouse fire in the picture seem not to be too devasting for me by the way. This is just, what can happen in Rimworld from time to time. Having a floored pathway between fields also helps outdoors.

I also never built up solar panels side by side anymore but I leave a gangway between and I floor the ground as soon as possible with metal tiles - but other flooring does the job also. The same I do with my turrets. Besides I do not use sandbacks to protect them but stone junks. They are not flameble.

Firefoam is nice also - especially indoors. But I hate it doing its thing on every small flame. They need components and sometimes you have to repair them.

In the end fires are only a problem if you think they are no problem in Rimworld longterm.