Fire

Why Daytime Burn Bans Make Sense during the Brown Season

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Why Daytime Burn Bans Make Sense during the Brown Season

Virginia and Ohio have various state laws that ban outdoor burning and fires during the day time Brown Season which usually is like sometime between October and May depending on the state. This actually makes a lot of sense from a weather related perspective.

  • At night as the temperature drops, usually the dew point drops far less if at all. The effect is the relative humidity increases, which often leaves frost in cold weather and dew on the warm weather. Things are generally damper at night, less risk of fire spread.
  • At the same time when the sun goes down, the breeze often slackens of not becomes completely calm. Especially in the spring, much of the breeze is caused by strong sun angle during the day which heats the air, stirring up air currents.
  • A fire that spreads at night is likely quickly spotted and extinguished. Flames are much more visible at night. Likewise fire brands from burning paper garbage or even sparks from wood are much more visible at night and steps can be taken to minimize them and quickly put out anything they ignite.
  • People who are burning things are much more likely to be home and watching their fires at night. It’s much more risky, especially in fire weather to light off a burn barrel before work then drive off to work while the trash is still smoldering, potentially allowing it to set grass on fire. A night time fire is much more likely to be observed until its out cold.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Gasoline is Dangerous

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I don’t know how many times I’ve told people that if you want to play with fire, never mess with gasoline. Diesel. Fine. Plastic. Whatever, just don’t burn yourself when you get melting and burning plastic on your skin. Blowing up aerosol cans. Fine, just make sure not to start a brush fire when you send partially burnt trash over your head. But gasoline — be aware!

What makes gasoline such a dangerous product is that it’s vapours are very explosive. Gasoline is relatively easy to vaporise as a fuel — you can vaporise it just by pouring it out of a container. And that vapour is very explosive. That’s why we use it as an engine fuel. It’s really easy to burn, and to burn cleanly under controlled conditions.

Burnin\' Wood

Yet, you figure out the sheer amount of power that a gasoline engine gets out of minuscule amounts of gasoline, you can understand why it’s so readily explosive. The explosion can not only provide controlled propulsion, but it can also blow up and send objects in towards your face, and that can be quite painful, to say nothing about the burns from the flash of fire.

Few common things are as dangerous as gasoline. Diesel doesn’t vaporise under normal conditions. You have to heat up diesel and apply compression to it for an explosion to occur. It’s relatively safe to pour diesel on some trash to get it burning. Diesel will burn, and it will burn hot, once it’s caught from something else burning, but it won’t explode.

Burnt

Gasoline in contrast does vaporise under normal conditions. It’s vapors will explode with an incredible amount of force. Pour gasoline on some trash, let it sit for a few seconds, toss a match at it from a half a dozen feet away, and boom. Hope you don’t have anything that will act as shrapnel coming towards you. And don’t do it in any kind of enclosed space that is likely to contain the explosion — as much fun as it is to watch.

If your ever working on anything that burns gasoline or similar fuel like Coleman fuel. Be very careful, if you care about your life, and don’t like visiting the Westchester Burn Unit.

  • Always check for fuel leaks with soap before lighting a white gas stove or other similar device
  • Don’t use gasoline to start fires, especially in enclosed spaces, or with anything you don’t want to hit you when it explodes.
  • Never pour gas in anything near flame or spark.

Camp Stove

These are all things we’ve learned as children. Yet the sheer fun of watching shit burn and explode, sometimes gets the best of us as adults. Just please remember, that gasoline goes boom and you don’t want to be in path of boom.

Bronx apartment fire kills 19, including 9 children | AP News

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Bronx apartment fire kills 19, including 9 children | AP News

NEW YORK (AP) — A malfunctioning space heater sparked a fire that filled a high-rise Bronx apartment building with thick smoke Sunday morning, killing 19 people including nine children in New York City’s deadliest blaze in three decades.

Trapped residents broke windows for air and stuffed wet towels under doors as smoke rose from a lower-floor apartment where the fire started. Survivors told of fleeing in panic down darkened hallways and stairs, barely able to breathe.

Multiple limp children were seen being given oxygen after they were carried out. Evacuees had faces covered in soot.

Firefighters found victims on every floor, many in cardiac and respiratory arrest, said Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. Some could not escape because of the volume of smoke, he said.

Some residents said they initially ignored wailing smoke alarms because false alarms were so common in the 120-unit building, built in the early 1970s as affordable housing.

False alarms are a big issue in many industries, that often not taken seriously. Too many false alarms are just as dangerous as alarm systems not working at all.

Another observation I have is that the dangers from toxic smoke inside of buildings from burning furniture and other debris is often under-estimated in modern fire-proof buildings, which often limit their fire to only a few rooms. And I certainly don't leave my space heater unattended, make sure plugs are in the wall securely, and are careful with it. Just like I am super careful with fire when I'm up in the woods, and some day when I own a wood stove.

The Picture Show : NPR

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See how Minnesota fire towers help preserve a 5,000-year-old bog : The Picture Show : NPR

In northern Minnesota, not much can beat the pristine view ??– and the rush – of climbing a fire tower. Reaching 100 feet into the sky, there were once nearly 150 of these steel lookouts guarding the state's fire-prone forests.

Today, only a handful of climbable towers exist and they remain on the front lines of fire prevention through education and an innate human desire to perch above the treetops.

Most fire towers in the U.S. were built in the 1930s. Staffed by generations of women and men trained to locate the first wisps of smoke, they were relied upon for over two decades as a critical line of defense against forest fires. In the 1950s, lookouts were replaced by airplanes.