How Much Water Do I Need - Firewater Demand

I remember the time when I was in my primary school. I think I was 11 or 12 years old when our dirty kitchen caught on fire. I was cooking our rice in the earthen jar/pot in our dirty kitchen, which I use dried woods, coconut shell, and dried coconut leaves. At that time I was using coconut shell because it produces high intensity fire, jet fire like effect. By experience, coconut shell will speed up the cooking time. 

Our dirty kitchen is about a meter and a half wide. About 400 mm above the fire hole is used to dry the woods, coconut leaves, and the rib of the coconut leaves. Because of the jet fire effect of the coconut shell some of the dried coconut leaves caught on fire, but not flaming. The fire is small and manageable. Only a few pieces of leaves are burning, but just a smoke. I need water. I went inside our house to get a cup of water...I know that fire is small that a cup of water is enough. My elder sister saw me in a hurry with a cup of water in my hand. "What's that for" she asked. "Our dirty kitchen is burning" I said. Then she run to see and both of us are in shock...the flame is huge and it almost the entire dried leaves above the pot of rice. My sister went inside back in our house and asked the help of my elder brother to fight the fire. My brother used a pail of water and dump it on to the flaming fire and he get another pail of water to extinguish the rest of the fire. This is my true experience if fire fighting and it happened when I was a kid.

Based on that experienced I learned that fire could spread faster than my action. Also, the amount of water, a cup of water or two pails of water. 

Several codes and standards are used to estimate the minimum amount of firewater required for firefighting. The codes and standards will provide the application rate of firewater and the discharge duration. 

Now that you know how much water is needed. Where do we get the water? That would be in another post.