Steven Spazuk draws with fire by holding a candle up to pieces of canvas, then adjusting the soot with brushes, knives, and his fingers to create images. I really like his impressionistic works, like the one above. But from a technical perspective, his massive composite portraits consisting of hundreds of smaller pieces demonstrate the magnitude of his skills. Watch a video at the link showing how Spazuk does it.

Link | Artist’s Website

During an arson investigators conference in Bakersfield, Calif., in January 1987, several suspicious fires broke out. At one of the fires, investigators found a single fingerprint on a piece of notebook paper. Two years later, during another fire investigators conference in Pacific Grove, an outbreak of small fires occurred. Bakersfield’s arson investigator compared the participants at both conferences and found 10 people attended both. By 1991, the investigators formed the Pillow Pyro task force and published a profile, noting the suspect was most likely an arson investigator from the greater Los Angeles area. The fingerprint found at the first conference was compared to those of the 10 attendees of both conferences; it matched Orr’s fingerprint. When he was arrested in November 1991, police found cigarettes, rubber bands, and binoculars.

A book Orr had written earlier about a fireman who was an arsonist did not help his defense. Read the story of Orr and five other arsonists at mental_floss. Link

(Image credit: Reuters/Gene Blevins/Lando)

Kanzi, the bonobo that surprised researchers with its linguistic skills (he had learned lexigrams naturally, simply by watching its mother), added a new skillset that will be handy when the apes rise up to take over the world: he can start a fire to cook meals!

Dr Savage-Rumbaugh, of the Great Ape Trust, in Des Moines, Iowa, adds: ‘Kanzi makes fire because he wants to. He used to watch the film Quest For Fire when he was very young which was about early man struggling to control fire. He watched it spellbound over and over hundreds of times.’

He was also fascinated by the camp fires his keepers made to cook food. And he was encouraged to interact with humans and copy them. At the age of five, he was making small piles of bone dry sticks.

David Derbyshire of The Daily Mail has the story (with lots more neat images): Link (Image: still from video by Great Ape Trust)

This Twaggie was rendered in comic form from a Tweet by @anniecolbert. Although I’ve known people like that, I hope it isn’t a true story! Link

These sculptures of flames by artist Herb Williams are an outdoor installation at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas. The name of the work is “Unwanted Visitor, Portrait of Wildfire.” But take a closer look -the flames are made of crayons! As the suns hits them, temperatures rise and fall, and the wind blows, the sculptures will melt, move, and change considerably, as they are designed to do. Link -via Laughing Squid

(Image credit: Ashton Thornhill)

Mike and Nancy Rogers were to be married in the main lodge at White Point Beach Resort in Nova Scotia. However, that building was on fire, so they held the ceremony in another resort building. But the happy couple took the opportunity to pose for a wedding portrait in front of the conflagration. That’s one photo composition you don’t see at every wedding! Read about the fire and see videos at HuffPo. Link -via Buzzfeed

(Image credit: Nicholas Augustus/Canadian Press)

1  Fire is an event, not a thing. Heating wood or other fuel releases volatile vapors that can rapidly combust with oxygen in the air; the resulting incandescent bloom of gas further heats the fuel, releasing more vapors and perpetuating the cycle.

2  Most of the fuels we use derive their energy from trapped solar rays. In photosynthesis, sunlight and heat make chemical energy (in the form of wood or fossil fuel); fire uses chemical energy to produce light and heat.

3  So a bonfire is basically a tree running in reverse.

4  Assuming stable fuel, heat, and oxygen levels, a typical house fire will double in size every minute.

Read the rest at Discover. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science

Want to know how a bunch of brawny apes evolved into brainy humans? It all comes down to a pair of tongs and a flame.

People and animals eat basically the same food; the only difference is that we cook our meals. But does the ability to flame-broil a burger and burn a meal really make us that special? According to Harvard anthropology professor Richard Wrangham, it does.

Armed with mounting evidence, Wrangham believes that fire-kissed foods are what separated man from beast, allowing our ancestors to grow bigger brains and evolve into the intelligent creatures we are today.

THE MISSING LINK

The story starts roughly 2 million years ago in the age of the habiline -the so-called “missing link” between humans and apes. Habilines walked upright, made primitive stone tools, and had brains the size of oranges (roughly half the size of our brains today). Like chimpanzees, they subsisted mainly on fruits and veggies, with the occasional bit of raw meat on the side. They had strong teeth to chew all that plant matter, and big guts to process all that fibrous material. For them, digestion took an extremely long time. In fact, it’s believed that their bodies were constantly engaged in processing food. (Even today, chimpanzees spend more than six hours a day just chewing.)

So, how did Homo habilis evolve into Homo erectus? The dominant theory since the 1950s has been that meat-eating was responsible for the shift because it required habilines to gradually develop human intelligence. There’s something to the idea: To hunt game, our apelike ancestors had to reply on more than just physical prowess; they had to be clever and cooperate. The better they got at hunting, the smarter they became.

But the “meat made humans” hypothesis rankled biologist Richard Wrangham. In his 2009 book Catching Fire, Wrangham argues that meat-eating alone cannot account for the tremendous physical changes that occurred in the evolution of humans. Instead, he believes that man’s discovery of fire -and more importantly, cooking- did the heavy lifting.

(Image credit: Banksy work, photo by Flickr user Lord Jim)

For decades, many scientists dismissed cooking as a pleasant byproduct of civilization, a symbol of man’s dominion over nature. But Wrangham builds the case that cooking was crucial to human evolution because it made digestion so much more efficient, increasing the amount of energy our bodies derived from what we ate. As a result, humans became better able to think, hunt, sing, dance, paint on walls, and invent new tools. Ultimately, the top chefs were more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass along cooking techniques to their offspring, along with the physical evolutionary changes that come with them -namely, bigger brains.

The idea that cooked food offers more energy than uncooked food doesn’t immediately make sense. After all, recent studies show that cooking can leach food of its calories and nutrients. To understand the answers, we need to look inside -literally.

GUT FEELINGS

Back in the early 19th century, digestion was a mysterious process. But all that changed in 1822, when a 28-year-old Canadian soldier named Alexis St. Martin was accidentally shot in the belly, leaving portions of his lungs and stomach exposed. Thanks to the quick-thinking work of U.S. Army surgeon William Beaumont, the blast didn’t kill St. Martin. However, it did leave him with a fist-sized hole in his stomach that never closed. Immediately, Dr. Beaumont spotted an opportunity; it was a chance to observe human digestion as it happened.

Alexis St. Martin

Beaumont began introducing foods directly into St. Martin’ stomach and watched what happened. He observed the young man digest cooked lean beef; raw, salted beef; raw cabbage, soup, and cooked potatoes. The doctor quickly realized that the more tender and cooked the food, the more swiftly and easily it passed through the bowels. One experiment was especially telling. At noon one day, Beaumont introduced both boiled beef and raw beef into St. Martin’s stomach. By 2 PM, the boiled beef was gone, but the raw beef exhibited only slight maceration.

St. Martin’s stomach showed that consuming cooked foods makes digestion easier and more efficient. Because it’s already warmed and chopped into pieces, it saves the body work. According to Wrangham, that’s why human colons are so much shorter than those of other primates. Digestion is more efficient, which makes longer digestive tracts unnecessary. It’s also why humans have small, blunt teeth and weak jaws compared to apes, who spend their days chewing through tough, raw food.

THE TRUTH ABOUT RAW FOODS

The flip side of eating cooked foods is that humans are no longer adept at eating raw meals. Simply put, our tummies are just not made for that anymore. But the notion runs contrary to the growing raw food movement in America. Proponents claim that strict raw food diets can lower cholesterol and blood pressure and promote weight loss -all of which is true. But the unbalanced diet comes with problems. A recent German study found that, of the women they followed on totally raw diet, 50 percent of them ceased to menstruate entirely. Additionally, men on raw food diets reported significantly decreased sex drives. So, while catwalk-model proportions might be all the rage, for our ancient ancestors, such reduced reproductive capabilities would have been disastrous.

In the end, we don’t just need hot meals to satisfy our hunger; we need them to fuel our libidos. In a sense, prepared foods are old-fashioned aphrodisiacs. For Homo sapiens, cooking is as natural as the birds and the bees.

A Window Into the Stomach -and the Soul

So, whatever happened to Alexis St. Martin, the man whose stomach helped the world understand digestion? In 1833, more than a decade after he started working with Dr. William Beaumont, St. Martin cut ties with the medical community. The man with the transparent stomach got fed up with being a scientific freak show. When he died in 1880, at the age of 86, St. Martin’s family kept his body for four days to make sure it rotted, and then buried it in an unusually deep grave, hoping to deter any medical interest in his remains.

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The article above, a portion of the special section Shocking Moments in the History of Food written by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, is reprinted with permission from the July-August 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!

Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!

United Nuclear is always a fun place to shop for high voltage equipment, chemicals, and radioactive supplies (you know, mad scientist stuff). Here’s something to impress your guests -colored flames! The kit contains boric acid, calcium nitrate, lithium carbonate, copper chloride, and copper acetate, along with complete instructions for creating a rainbow in your fireplace or campfire. Link -via @LettersofNote

Every year it’s decorated for Christmas and Independence Day. Right now, it’s covered with several American flags and yellow ribbons. It also has its own water system set up underneath, with several large drums and a pipe to feed it water.

That’s where the tree gets its name — the mystery tree. A mystery person or people decorate it every year, but it’s also a mystery because it manages to have survived several wildfires over the years.

“It’s survived wildfire after wildfire” says ADOT engineer Greg Gentsch. “We’re just happy it’s still here.”

Link -via Arbroath

(Video Link)

This innocent looking robotic pony has a dark secret-he breathes fire like a dragon! Apparently, he wants to show the world that he’s worthy of serving as a mount for one of the Four Horsemen, once he’s full-grown of course. He was created for Maker Faire Detroit 2011, and is cleverly controlled via Wii-mote. The battlefields of the future just became a much stranger place.

Link

The Combustion Institute, an organization of scientists and engineers who study fire, hosts an annual art competition for photographers of fire. You can view the five winning selections, including this one by Nelson Akafuah and Kozo Saito:

[...]this fire whirl was created by igniting benzene, a simple petrochemical, then mirroring and rotating the resultant image to produce a distinctive “S” shape.

Link -via Make

What are the most extreme substances in the world? No, not Mountain Dew;  this list compiles and gives the details on the hottest, most flammable and most acidic substances known to man. One of which can melt through twelve layers of concrete.

What do you get when you stack carbon nanotubes on their ends and sandwich them together? A material that absorbs 99.9% of the light that touches it. The microscopic surface of the material is rough and uneven, which breaks up the light and makes it a poor reflector. Then add to that carbon nanotubes act as superconductors in certain arrangements, which makes them excellent light absorbers, and you have a perfect storm of black.

Link

Mia’s owner, Chris Brumby, was amazed at how the dog survived, but said he knew she was smart.

“She acts like a human for most things,” Brumby said. “And that kind of showed it. She knew where to go and hide.”

He said Mia was able to get to a bathtub on the lowest level of the house, where she waited as firefighters doused the home with water. As the water ran down into the basement, it filled the bathtub and soaked Mia, keeping her safe from flames, Brock said.

Brumby said the dog has learned how to open doors throughout the house, and that she had to open four doors to get to the bathtub where she was found.

Six hours after firefighters arrived, they found Mia, wet and sooty, but well. The cause of the fire has is not yet determined. Link -via Arbroath

Now those six have been identified, largely through the persistence of a researcher, Michael Hirsch, who became obsessed with learning all he could about the victims after he discovered that one of those killed, Lizzie Adler, a 24-year-old greenhorn from Romania, had lived on his block in the East Village.

And so, for the first time, at the centennial commemoration of the fire on March 25 outside the building in Greenwich Village where the Triangle Waist Company occupied the eighth, ninth and 10th floors, the names of all 146 dead will finally be read.

The New York Times has the story of how the last six were finally named. Link -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Yana Paskova/The New York Times)

If you look, you can often find good advice on Twitter. And sometimes that advice gets illustrated as a Twaggie. This Tweet by @Dana_Barzilay was illustrated by David Barneda. Link

Chicago grew up fast. In 1840, it was a quiet settlement of 4,500 people. Three decades later, it had grown to a vibrant metropolis of 300,000. Unfortunately, the city planners didn’t take much stock of the materials they were using. From the planks of the sidewalks to the shingles on the roofs, the new city was built almost entirely of wood. And in the autumn of 1871, all of that came to a head.

On October 8, during a particularly dry and windy spell, the wood and weather combined to make combustion history. That night, the Great Chicago Fire broke out in a DeKoven Street barn. (The O’Leary family owned it, but their cow had nothing to do with the fire.) The flames advanced quickly, engulfing nearby lumberyards and the city’s downtown, and they burned for 36 hours straight. In the end, 18,000 structures were destroyed, as many as 300 people were killed, and nearly one-third of the population was left homeless.

Yet, the enduring legacy of the Great Chicago Fire is not its destruction, but the amazing rebirth that took place after it.

The rebuilding of Chicago began with Joseph Medill, managing editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, who personified the city’s indomitable spirit. Even though the blaze had partially leveled his newspaper’s headquarters, Medill cranked out a special edition two days later, affirming the city’s resolve with an editorial stating, “Cheer up … Chicago Shall Rise Again.” It was more than empty encouragement. One month later, Medill was elected mayor on the city’s “Fireproof” ticket. He immediately ushered in safety reforms that set the stage for rapid development and a new wave of construction.

Within 10 years, the population of Chicago had nearly doubled. Soon, there was no more land to build on, and overcrowding was setting in. But in 1883, architect William Le Baron Jenney came up with a novel solution. He designed the innovative, 10-story Home Insurance Building -widely considered to be the world’s first skyscraper. The Home Insurance Building had the steadiness of a cathedral, but at a third of the normal weight. Jenney’s genius was in using a light steel frame covered in hollow terra cotta tiles to prevent the spread of fire. His skyscraper inspired architects to think vertically and gave rise not just to Chicago’s skyline, but also to new skylines across the globe.

CITY MEETS WORLD

By 1890, less than two decades after the Great Fire, more than 1 million people were living in Chicago. It surpassed Philadelphia in population, and became America’s “second city”, next only to New York. Despite its size, many saw Chicago as a glorified hick town. To change that perception, Chicago competed with New York to host the world’s Columbian Exposition, a fair to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in America. At the time, World’s Fairs were serious business. They had the power to thrust a host city into the global spotlight and bring in enormous revenue and prestige.

While New York had financial titans like J.P. Morgan and William Waldorf Astor bidding in its corner, Chicago had something more compelling -a collective sense of purpose. Department store mogul Marshall Field, who’d lost his original building in the blaze, and industrialist Cyrus McCormick, who’d also lost his factory, pledged a combined $15 million to underwrite the fair. Then an even more surprising thing happened: The taxpayers voted for a referendum pledging an additional $5 million. To them, the World’s Fair wasn’t just a celebration; it was a chance at rebirth.

In the end, Congress decided that Chicago’s bid was stronger than New York’s, and the city went on to host one of the most successful World’s Fairs in history. The 1893 event introduced the world to ragtime music, shredded wheat, hamburgers, postcards, neon lights, and the Ferris wheel. It also influenced architecture for decades to come. The fairground’s classical buildings inspired the nationwide City Beautiful movement, which led to the creation of the National Mall in Washington, DC, and the fair’s layout inspired modern amusement parks, such as Disneyland. The buildings even sparked the imagination of writer L. Frank Baum, who created the Emerald City in their image in his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

On October 9, 1893, on the 22th anniversary of the Great Fire, 716,881 people visited the World’s Fair in one day, shattering all previous Fair attendance records. In just 22 years, Chicago had risen from a pile of rubble to the height of civilization -and the world was there to celebrate.

__________________________

The article by Christopher Zara is reprinted from the May- June 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine. You can order back issues of mental_floss or get a subscription to have each issue delivered to you!

Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!

Phil said: “There is some damage but nothing compared to what it could have been.”

Phil’s wife Sharon added that Pepper is a law unto himself and has a fiery streak. “But all is forgiven now, ” she said.

She said that neighbours also deserve credit.

Sharon said: “We are thankful that they did not just dismiss it as a bonfire. They rallied around and even directed the fire service here through the narrow lanes.”

Pepper is still a bit spooked by his ordeal. “But he is still managing to eat plenty of food,” said Sharon.

Link -via Arbroath

There are a few perks to my job as a mad scientist, and one of them, as I recently learned, is being able to tell my colleagues that I can’t attend their terribly important meeting because I’m going to set my hand on fire.

In the movies, people on fire stumble out of burning buildings all the time. If you look closely, however, you’ll notice that they are almost always fully dressed, and that they tend to keep moving. These are two important factors that make the stunt much easier.

Warning: do not try this at home. Link -via the Presurfer

Link [embedded YouTube clip]

I dare say that Karl has probably got the best job on TV.

After the initial blast, flames reached as high as 100 feet as the fire fueled itself on burning homes, leaving some in total ruins and reducing parked automobiles to burned out shells. At least 120 homes also suffered serious damage.

Witnesses heard the explosion miles away and said it shot a fireball more than 1,000 feet in the air, sending frightened residents fleeing for safety and rushing to get belongings out of burning homes.

"I thought a 747 had landed on us," Barringer told the Times. "It shook our station right to its foundation."

What could’ve caused such an explosion? A ruptured 30-inch steel gas pipeline is suspected. Link (Photo: KNTV)

I used to live near San Bruno and a cousin of mine lives there (she’s okay), so that sort of hit close to home. But have you ever thought about the ground under your house simply exploding?

Quick-thinking firemen and zoo staff adapted oxygen masks designed for humans to save the lives of the 140lb African-spurred tortoises.

“We expect them to make a full recovery,” vet Isabella Eberle told CEN. “The masks were designed for human use but we managed to make them fit.”

Link -via Arbroath

We’ve all contemplated that nightmare scenario: you’re trapped in an IKEA store after closing, the cold of winter is seeping into your bones, and worst of all, a pack timber wolves is starting to circle around you. You need to start a fire now. But how? This video by Vimeo user Helmet tells you how to start a fire with nothing more than the products you can find in an IKEA store.

via reddit

It’s a rare weather event, but a fire tornado was recently caught on camera in a drought-stricken region of Brazil. The tornado started fires in nearby fields, which were contained overnight.

The vortex of fire resulted from months of drought in the region, combined with brush fires and strong, dry winds.

Though a rare phenomenon, the formation of a fire tornado, or fire whirl, is quite simple.

When there is a warm updraft of air and convergence of fire, say from a wildfire, a vortex of flame can occur. As the heated air from the fire rises, strong air currents cause flame to spin, shaping it into a tornado.

At the link, you can read about how to make your own fire tornado at home.

Link via Sci Fi Wire

There have been about 200 reported cases of spontaneous human combustion reported in history, in which a person was killed by a fire that could not be explained otherwise. What happened? And is there a scientific explanation for these cases?

The earliest case of SHC that we know of today comes from a Danish anatomist named Thomas Bartholin who in 1663 described an occurrence in Paris where a woman was burnt completely to ashes in her sleep while the straw mattress upon which she was laying remained unmarred by the flames that had consumed her. Since the reporting of this case of spontaneous human combustion to the whole of the European community, many others have been recorded in history. Yet, they tend to have a similar pattern in the resulting accounts. The victim is generally found almost completely consumed by a then died out fire in his or her home or place of residence.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by vedran84.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said Michelle Perrino, 40, drew suspicion during a meeting of Bayonet Point Oxygen employees when she mentioned the May 12, 2009, fire had started in a filing cabinet before workers had been informed of the fire’s origins, the St. Petersburg Times reported Thursday.

Investigators said a friend of Perrino told them she had admitted to tripping the main circuit breaker and adjusting phones to block incoming calls in bids to go home early without sacrificing the day’s pay.

Link – via Arbroath

Using tea candles for pixels, YouTube member brusspup lit and relit for two weeks to create this video game sequence. It’s all worth it if you enjoy watching it! -via the Presurfer

Burning question: Did you ever wonder how fire works? We did. Here’s what we found out.

HOT TOPIC

The scientific definition of fire is “a rapid, persistent chemical reaction that releases heat and light, especially the exothermic combination of a combustible substance with oxygen.” That chemical reaction is called oxidation, which happens when oxygen atoms in the atmosphere combine with atoms “borrowed” from other elements, in this case, from fuel. (Another form of oxidation: rust- it;s just a lot slower.) For fire to occur, three ingredients must be present:

*An oxidizing agent. Can come from a pure oxygen source (like a welding tank) or, more commonly, the air. All that’s needed is an atmosphere of at least 16 percent oxygen; normal air is about 21 percent.

*Fuel. Can be anything from a solid (wood, plastic, or wax), to a liquid (gasoline or alcohol), or a gas (propane).

*A heat or ignition source. Could be lightning, friction (as when striking a match), focused light, or a chemical reaction.

YOU’RE FIRED

For oxidation to take place, the fuel must be heated to a certain temperature, known as the ignition temperature. It’s different for different substances: paper’s ignition temperature, for example, is 451°F. When a fuel reaches it’s ignition temperature, a chemical reaction occurs that begins to decompose it into flammable gases known as volatiles. Some solids, like wood, go directly from solid to gas, while others, like wax, go from solid to liquid and then to gas. This depends on the chemical makeup of the fuel. In either case, the volatiles then violently interact with the oxygen in the atmosphere-that’s called combustion.

Using a candle as an example, when you apply a burning match (the ignition source) to the wax on the wick (the fuel), the wax will heat to a certain temperature (the ignition temperature). It will begin to evaporate and release gases (the volatiles), which then react with the oxygen in the air (combustion). Result: fire.

The heat from the fire will then cause the wax to keep melting and moving back down the wick, evaporating, igniting, and burning away. Because the fire then produces its own heat-a necessary ingredient-it’s called a persistent chemical reaction.

EXTINGUISHED

You already know how to put out a candle-but do you know why it goes out? When you blow out a candle, the wax has cooled below its ignition temperature. If it didn’t go out, you didn’t lower the temperature enough-or for long enough. Try pressing the wick between your thumb and finger. The fire will go out because you removed the fuel source by stopping the wax from climbing the wick. Or put a glass over the candle, taking away the oxygen.

With larger fires, it’s usually difficult to take away the fuel, so fire extinguishers work by eliminating either the oxygen, the heat, or both. Water extinguishers work by cooling the fuel; dry powder extinguishers work by smothering the fire, thereby taking away the oxygen; foam extinguishers both smother and cool the fuel; and carbon dioxide extinguishers displace the oxygen in the air while simultaneously cooling it.

MORE FACTS

*Spontaneous combustion occurs when a fuel reaches its ignition temperature without the aid of an outside ignition source.This can happen because some substances naturally react with oxygen in the air, but most often it’s from spontaneous heating, a slow buildup of heat. A cause of many house fires is the spontaneous heating of oily rags. If there is insufficient ventilation-like in the back of a garage-the heat can build up enough for fire to occur.

*Hot fact: You can’t have fire without oxygen, right? Wrong. All that’s necessary is an oxidizing agent, meaning an element that easily takes electrons from other atoms. Oxygen is the most common agent, which is why the reaction is called “oxidation”. Fluorine, however, is the strongest known oxidizer-much stronger than oxygen. Used in the production of atomic bombs and rocket fuel, fluorine can cause substances like steel or glass to instantly burst into flame. And those flames are virtually impossible to put out.

(Image credits: Flicker users Kuzeytac and ViaMoi)

_________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

This looks way cool. You can ignite the particles in a stream of smoke! It’s not so cool when you think about how this would work in a burning house. -via reddit

Neatoramanaut Zavatone, spell checker extraordinaire and all-round good guy wrote me about his recent misadventure involving his car, electrical short, fire, and halon fire extinguisher:

Today, I had the pleasure of venturing back, driving from building to building, taking care of this and that and finally was ready to sit down and get to work with one of my coworkers when a frightened friend of mine ran into our cube and hurriedly stated "black Audi A6 out front?"

Now, I should stop right there, leaving you to guess at all my potential replies, but that would be mean and since it would be mean to be mean after a Monday like I just had, I just won’t do that.

Simply, calmly and with refined grace I replied, "yes?" After which I kindly tilted my ear to hear his response which was, "It’s on FIRE."

Chaos rapidly ensued involving lots of running and glorious clouds of halon*.

Suffice it to say, that my car (while innocuously parked in the OFF position) decided that it no longer approved of its left headlight assembly and proceeded, with sole intent, to burn it off the face of this planet. While this determined vehicle was partially successful, the two of us chaotic running people had to take it upon ourselves to ruin its fun with ample amounts of halon while the rest of the office stood way too close behind us, obviously cheering our efforts or chanting for our demise.

While we did win (I think), this inconvenience certainly dampened my goal of uneventful productivity for the day, but I did learn one thing. That thing is to remember to check if the model of car you drive has any recalls issued by the factory for reasons of "electrical system will likely catch on fire while you are trying to work."

Check your car to see if there are any pending recalls on it. Please.

Thanks Zavatone!

Note by Alex: *That’s not halon, which has fallen out of favor because of cost and environmental concern (the bromine in halon depletes ozone layer). It is no longer produced in the United States as of 1993. Halon doesn’t leave residue. Zavatone probably used a regular dry chemical fire extinguisher. Still, his point remains valid.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a webpage where you can check if there’s a recall on your car.

The couple in Maryland who made the fire-breathing snowman have their own dragon busy at work melting snow. Wouldn’t you love to have neighbors like this? -via Gizmodo

They started by placing small glass spheres on maple leaves and exposing them to sunlight. The leaves were quickly sunburned. However, when the glass spheres were replaced with water droplets on both maple and ginkgo leaves, there was no visible burn. Water drops are usually ellipsoidal in shape and are less able than a sphere to concentrate light. In addition, the ellipsoidal shape is able to intensify sunlight only when the sun is low in the sky—when the light is not so strong—and the water itself provides cooling.

There was an exception, though, with plants that have small waxy hairs covering their leaves, like floating ferns. The hairs are hydrophilic and water is held in spheres above the leaf’s surface. Like the glass spheres, these water droplets can intensify sunlight enough the burn a leaf. The scientists say that if water droplets accumulated on a parched plant, sunlight could theoretically spark a fire. They write, “however, the likelihood of this is considerably reduced by fact that after rain the originally dry vegetation becomes wet, and as it dries water drops also evaporate. Thus, claims of fires induced by sunlit water drops on vegetation should…be treated with a grain of salt.”

Link | Photo: US Department of Health and Human Services

YouTube link.

A public service announcement video from the U.S. Department of Commerce demonstrating how rapidly fire will spread in a dry Christmas tree.

Some Neatorama readers may remember an era when trees were decorated with real candles, and families kept a bucket of water with a mop nearby.  Trees of that era were of course more freshly cut and had branching patterns less dense than today’s field-pruned varieties.

Via Cynical-C.

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

Link -via Arbroath

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”.

Link

“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

Link (with very impressive video) – via TYWKIWDBI

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.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by samworm.

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

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.

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]

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.

Link

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.

Link