Alfie the Canine Arsonist
A hungry dog in Llanfairfechan, Wales set fire to a home and caused £6,000 in damage. Paul Gregson, his wife, and two sons escaped the burning house just after midnight Tuesday.
John Morgan, of North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, said: “The family’s pet dog appears to have started the fire by turning on the griddle in the middle of the night. This is why all electrical items not designed to be left on should be switched off at the mains when not in use or overnight.
“The smoke alarm activated and gave this family the opportunity to escape safely. It demonstrates once again that smoke alarms really do save lives.”
The kitchen was badly damaged and there was heat and smoke damage to the rest of the house.
Three-year-old Alfie is a flat-coated retriever, a breed Gregson says is “slow to mature”. Link -via Arbroath
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Flammable Ice
(YouTube Link)
High school science teacher “Mr. Kent” has a YouTube channel full of neat chemistry demonstration videos. In this one, he sets ice on fire. Here’s how:
Ice is added to a dry Pyrex bowl. When the Ice melts the water reacts with the calcium carbide (place on the bottom) to produce acetylene gas and calcium hydroxide. The acetylene gas then explodes into flames when a match is place on top. It will continue to burn even as the ice melts because it keeps producing acetylene until the calcium carbide runs out.
via Urlesque | Mr. Kent’s Chemistry Page | YouTube Channel
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Fire-Fighting Robot
(YouTube Link)
The Fire Spy Robot, developed by the South Korean firm Hoya Robot, can be thrown into a burning building, roll through fire, take pictures, and inform firefighters outside of the conditions inside. In addition to reconnaissance duties, it can tow a water hose and spray the fire:
The little two-wheeled robot can roam through the blaze spraying water from a fire hose and looking for trapped people. Its onboard light and camera helps firefighters pin-point people before they enter the building themselves. The robot also gives them enough information to decide on the safe routes, and quickly develop a rescue plan.
The Firefighters Assistance Robot is a small device resembling a miniature tank and measuring just 12.5 cm in diameter and weighing 2 kg. It can travel at 1 foot per second and withstand a fall of over six feet. It can also survive temperatures as high as 160 C (320 F). The operating time of the robot inside a burning structure is up to 30 minutes.
Link via Popular Science | Company Website
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911 Dispatcher Got Call That Own House Was On Fire!
For 11 years, Mike Bowes has been working as a 911 dispatcher for the Quincy Police Department in Massachusetts. He’s heard of everything from baby deliveries to deaths, but this call was probably the most shocking to him: it was someone reporting that his own house was on fire!
My neighbor’s house just blew up, the caller said.
"What’s the address?" Mike Bowes asked patiently, just as he did with every emergency call for the past 11 years with the Quincy Police Department.
The caller frantically relayed the address, Bowes’ home address for 20 years.
"It was shocking," Mike Bowes said. "I thought she was kidding. It’s a long shot. I mean, what’s the chances it will be your house?"
Link (Photo: WHDH)
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Cat Saves Man from Burning Home
With most “pet saves family from fire” stories, it’s easy to assume that the pet woke someone up because it wanted OUT of the house. In this case, the cat came in from outside, and it didn’t even live there!
Engineer Andrew Williams was asleep when the fire broke out at his bungalow in Bracknell in Berkshire.
As black smoke filled the property, his neighbour’s cat Hugo came through a cat-flap and raised the alarm by clawing at the father-of-two’s face.
Rescuers said that the fire could have killed Mr Williams if he had not been awoken by Hugo. A smoke detector had been moved during work on the bungalow.
Hugo had been in the house before, and was in fact a regular visitor. He was not in the habit of clawing Mr. Williams’ face. Link -via Arbroath
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Tortoise Survivor
A fire broke out in Becky Smith’s home when a heat lamp turned over on her tortoise cage, setting the wood chip litter ablaze. The bedrooms were engulfed, and two tortoises died. A third tortoise named Shelli was thought to be dead as well, as his cage was melted.
He was so hot he ‘phfizzed’ when firefighters put him in water – and then poked his head out.
‘The firemen said he was steaming when they put him in the bucket of water and he was so hot they couldn’t pick him up,’ said Ms Smith, 27.
‘It’s a miracle he is OK – especially when you see the state of the cage.’
Vets kept him in overnight and Shelli is now nibbling cucumber again.
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Strangers Save Family from Burning Car
(CNN video link)
This intense video was shot as a group of neighbors and passers-by rescued a mother and her two children from their burning SUV in Milwaukee. The mother and baby daughter were brought out first, but the son was trapped. Two off-duty firefighters, John Rechlitz and Joel Rechlitz, as well as off-duty police officer Mark Wroblewski went to work to extract 4-year-old D.J. Harper as the back of the car burned fiercely. D.J. suffered second and third degree burns, but is expected to make a full recovery. Link -via I Am Bored
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40th Anniversary of the Cuyahoga River Fire
40 years ago yesterday the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio caught on fire. Again.
The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire was one of the seminal events in American environmental history, yet the conventional narrative about the fire is all wrong — including the famous picture that Time magazine published erroneously. News photographers failed to arrive in time to catch pictures of the quick blaze. The picture Time published was actually from 1952.
Although this river was particularly infamous for its flammibility, river fires were fairly common in Industrial Age America. Now the river is again healthy and “fish-friendly”.
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Fired, then Fire!
Victor Gonzalez of Oregon City had a really bad day on Friday. He found out he had lost his job as an emergency department social worker. Then he went home to find his house on fire! Gonzalez’s 12-year-old daughter Audriana helped to get her sister and cousin out of the house, then called 911. Firefighters got the blaze under control in 30 minutes. Gonzalez looked at the bright side.
“If I hadn’t gotten fired from work, I wouldn’t have come home, and I don’t know how far the fire would’ve gotten. So I guess that’s a good thing,” he said.
Link -via Unique Daily
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Flammable Water
Normally, you’d fight fire with water, but not at Jesse and Amee Ellsworth’s home. They have so much natural gas, leaking from nearby gas wells, in their water that they can light it on fire!
Link (with very impressive video) – via TYWKIWDBI
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Making The Rubens' Tube
If you have some music that you want to see instead of hear, and if you have some bbq gas and plumbing supplies too. Well why not build a Rubens’ Tube? If you’re lucky you’ll be treated to an amazing representation of the music in flames. If you’re unlucky something will explode
The basic idea is that you have a length of pipe with hole drilled along the top. The ends are sealed, at one end there is a speaker and at the other end there is a gas source. Once the pipe is flooded with gas you light the vapour flowing out of the hole, crank some tunes into the speaker and stand back. The speaker creates waves of sound pressure through the length of the tube, and these variations in pressure cause the flow of gas through each hole to vary… resulting in a visualisation of the sound wave painted in flames.
From the Upcoming 
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The Rubens' Tube: Physics + Fire = Awesome!
[YouTube - Link]
Physics can be fun if you don’t have to take a test. The scientific principles behind the Rubens’ Tube (showing standing waves) involved in this demonstration are explained at Wikipedia, but are more dramatically illustrated in the video.
– via dilidoo
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Chinese Highrise Engulfed in Flames
This is a surreal and gruesome yet fascinating sight: a massive fire engulfing the newly built 40-story Mandarin Oriental hotel in the CCTV Complex in Beijing. You can watch the top of the building exploding as fire consumes the entire structure.
CNN has an article compiling first-hand reports from its citizen reporters:
The blaze erupted in the final hours of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebration as people set off fireworks across the city.
Xinhua reported that Beijing residents were supposed to stop selling and lighting fireworks by midnight. iReporter de Villeneuve said she
suspects many people in the city were trying to use whatever remaining fireworks they had before the deadline."We have been seeing fireworks for the past two weeks. I have to say this is quite a surprise," she said.
iReporter Rice said he was watching fireworks nearby when he noticed that fireworks were being set off near the buildings.
"Then we looked closer and saw the flames come from the top of the building," Rice said. "Soon became apparent that the building was on fire."
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
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Revenge of the Mice
A deadly fire that killed nearly 100 cats at an animal shelter in Toronto, Canada, was caused by …. mice!
The fire at the humane society shelter in Oshawa also killed three dogs and some rats that were up for adoption.
An initial report from the fire marshal says mice or rats chewing through electrical wires in the ceiling are likely to have sparked the blaze.
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Money to Burn - Fire Starters
Light your fire with a roll of hundreds and enjoy watching your money going up in smoke.
These wads of faux $100 bills are coated with a slow-burning wax that stays lit until your logs catch fire.
A set of six $100 bill fire starters costs $14.95.
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