300 posts tagged with fire.
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"Oh no, the earth is moving, the groundwork's compromised"
"This was a country ... where 'daily life was a fire hazard'"
Daniel Immerwahr (03/2024), "All That Is Solid Bursts into Flame: Capitalism and Fire in the Nineteenth-Century United States": "The hot capitalism story is one of speculation, calamities, collapses, deadbeats, dubious currencies, get-rich-quick schemes, manias, frauds and panics ... In the combustible United States, fire was a conspicuous sign of economic volatility." Related: "The American Museum in Ruins" by P.T. Barnum. "An oral history of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871." Steam fire engines (1893). Chicago's Awful Theater Horror (1904). Recollections of a Fire Insurance Man (1909). And a history of the National Board of Fire Underwriters (1916). Previouslies: Sanborn Maps. Disaster Capitalism. And Immerwahr. Tangents: Black firefighters. "The Great Chelsea Fire of 1973," in which two fires are explained in economic and 19th C. history terms. And "A Political Economy of Wildfire in the Western United States" [PDF].
Our energy system is stuck in the past
Fire has been our primary source of energy for over a million years, providing the essential heat needed to survive. This reliance on fire made sense when our principal energy needs were purely for heat. However, today’s energy demands have evolved far beyond this primal necessity. Unlike in past millennia, we now require more work than heat: we desire mobility, motors, electrical appliances, and data processing in greater quantities than we do warmth. Despite this transformation over the past century from heat demand to work demand, our fundamental energy supply methods have not changed much, and are still mostly heat generation. This has led to incredible inefficiency.... We need energy sources fit for an era of work demand, not heat demand. Fortunately, thanks to the rapid growth and cost decline of solar, wind, and electrification, “firepower” faces inexorable decline. from Energy after Fire [Rocky Mountain Institute]
It looks a bit like a large spliff...
As the Olympic games draw near, it is announced that the torch will soon be carried by Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., professionally known as Snoop Dogg. Since leaving Greece in late April, the torch has jaunted around France in the build-up to the games. The torch will also be transported by an unusually long rowing boat, but it's still not widely known who (perhaps a MeFite) will be lighting the cauldron.
At What Distance Can the Human Eye Detect a Candle Flame?
"Nevertheless, we have shown that a candle flame at roughly 2.6 km would have an apparent brightness comparable to a 6th magnitude star. Could the keenest human eyes on the planet see a candle flame at 10 miles? We have provided strong evidence that the answer is No, for it would be as faint as a star of apparent magnitude 10, and that would require a pair of 7 X 50 binoculars mounted on a tripod, even for experienced observers with good night vision." [more inside]
Re-light my fire
A discovery about how a circular trough filled with lighter fluid can create looping mini-flames leads to a fascinating set of experiments and an explanation of excitable media. [more inside]
Landmark building in Copenhagen on fire
Old Stock Exchange Building from 17th Century burns Yet another building renovation gone wrong.
In the Face of Mounting Climate Risks, the Insurance Safety Net Is Falli
Natural disasters are costing the US insurance industry a fortune. What happens when no one wants to pick up the tab? [more inside]
“What’s that thing with the fire?”
A perfectly executed Bananas Foster takes about three to four minutes to prepare. But a restaurant flambé requires additional time to allow the person who orders it to overshare about the one other time they ordered a flambé at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the south of France. Someone at the table will also invariably ask, “Have you ever burned anyone before?” (Thankfully, I have not — but I’ve definitely sent errant chunks of flaming banana out of the pan a couple of times like rogue fruit meteors, causing momentary bouts of panic and a few singed linens.) Every time a pan spiked with sugar and alcohol combusts, flambé sales go viral. One order and the entire restaurant goes up in flames. from Confessions of a Tableside Flambéur
If You Have Raw Feelings Related to Recent Fires, This Could Be Rough
Fire escapes are a hacky bit of afterthought tacked on to the outside of a building after the building is finished. If you're using fire escapes, it's worth making them as good as possible, but you’ll prevent more fires if you build better buildings. Similarly, incident response is often a hacky bit of afterthought tacked on long after software is released. Again, great incident response can help you recover faster than if you don’t have it but… you’ll prevent more outages if you build better software. Finally, buildings have an extremely detailed fire code, but we don't really have an extremely detailed systems engineering code for software, and I think we should have. from The History of Fire Escapes
Stay inside and reduce your exposure.
What to know about the Canadian wildfires affecting parts of the U.S. [The Washington Post] [Gift article] “Uncontrollable flames are ravaging swaths of Canadian forest in what authorities described as a “devastating” wildfire season that could become the worst the country has ever seen. The United States’ northern neighbor is home to some of the world’s densest forests, and it experiences wildfires every year. But this year, the fires have been particularly widespread, numerous and intense, burning through more than 3.7 million acres in Canada. Canada’s government expects “higher-than-normal fire activity” to continue throughout the wildfire season — which typically lasts between April and September — due to a combination of ongoing drought conditions and hot temperature forecasts. Smoke and haze from the Canadian wildfires has also affected the United States, leading authorities from New York to Minnesota to issue public health alerts and urge people to stay indoors and wear masks to protect themselves from potentially toxic fine particles in the air.” [more inside]
Female Fire Lookouts Have Been Saving the Wilderness for Over a Century
Female Fire Lookouts Have Been Saving the Wilderness for Over a Century. Spotting smoke from towers on high peaks could have been deemed "man's work", but a few pioneers paved the way for generations of women to do the job.
fire & rain
This is an article that talks about atmospheric rivers, which can carry more water than the Amazon River and provide California with like half its water. This is a 25-minute video that talks about how to use emergency fire shelters for firefighters. [more inside]
Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022
Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022. Smithsonian paleoanthropologists reveal the year’s most riveting findings about our close relatives and ancestors.
To put the landlord in prison borders on the unconscionable- Stadtmuelle
Nearly a decade later a deadly house fire near Milwaukee gets a feature article with the depth and history of something you would see in The New Yorker on oranges. Why?
Because with this renter and landlord the outcomes of this deadly house fire demonstrate the two justice systems in the US. The landlord is Todd Brunner, a slum lord with a lengthy history of code violations and fires at his property. It's is not shocking that the the deadly fire at the property that a bank had recently foreclosed on results in no fines, nothing. It is still astonishing that the renter, a mum who loses 3 of her children in the fire, ends up serving back to back child neglect sentences. [more inside]
Because with this renter and landlord the outcomes of this deadly house fire demonstrate the two justice systems in the US. The landlord is Todd Brunner, a slum lord with a lengthy history of code violations and fires at his property. It's is not shocking that the the deadly fire at the property that a bank had recently foreclosed on results in no fines, nothing. It is still astonishing that the renter, a mum who loses 3 of her children in the fire, ends up serving back to back child neglect sentences. [more inside]
Climate change risk calculation comes home
Risk Calculators Launched to Help Americans Plan for Climate Change. (Bloomberg) "American communities facing a warmer future, with more intense floods, storms and wildfires, on Monday got two new digital tools that will aid officials in calibrating infrastructure and strategies to adapt." [more inside]
Harriet and the Matches
A spooky season video inspired by a German fairy tale with voices by Cillian Murphy and Bernice Stegers. Warning for the death of a child (this is an old school fairy tale). SLVimeo, just over 4 minutes.
Well, that escalated quickly.
[slyt] An unexpected leak in an aluminium (aluminum) factory causes a fire problem, and eventually a bit of damage to the ceiling. However, the worker still chooses to rescue their phone; the right call to make?
No time to cut trees? How about a nice fire
Prescribed Burn Associations are increasing in number across the US. Prairie has been maintained by fire for thousands of years. Over the last thirty years though, cedar has increased by 600%, and trees in general are one of the larger threats to unmaintained prairie. [more inside]
Stay calm
Butter Where Butter Shouldn't Be
"I had butter in places a guy shouldn't have butter." On May 3, 1991, 20 million pounds of butter caught fire at a warehouse in Madison, WI. It took eight days to put it out entirely. Some video of the Great Butter Fire.
RIP Jim Steinman
Jim Steinman has died at the age of 73. He's best known for writing and producing a string of hits for artists including Meatloaf (Albums "Bat Out of Hell" and "Bat Out of Hell II"), Bonnie Tyler ("Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero"), Air Supply (Making Love out of Nothing at All), among many others. [more inside]
Fanning the flames of union democracy
The heat is on in the election for the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF).
Veteran opponent of Scott Walker's anti-public sector union efforts, Black progressive, and Bernie Sanders delegate Mahlon Mitchell has lit a match under favored Edward Kelly, white and traditionalist union leader, and veteran of the Air Force and national fire department deployment to the World Trade Center.
To a degree, this election conflict is fueled by GOP vs Democratic conflicts, as Kelly, in his current role of Secretary Treasurer of the union, hired on Matt Golsteyn as his chief of operations. Golsteyn is better known as an admitted war criminal who was pardoned by Trump.
Kelly's choice to shed light on long-smouldering rumors of multi-decade IAFF president Schaitberger's financial abuses, sparked this rare opening for new leadership, but under hazy circumstances that suggest collusion with conservative, anti-union forces.
Literally playing with fire
How to play Snapdragon, a Victorian Christmas party game!
In his pockets were 35 cents and a lighter.
Email a dumpster fire. Literally.
1. Send an email to dumpsterfire@hey.com with whatever you want to torch. Use plain text or an image attachment. PG-13 rules apply. // 2. Watch on the live feed as your message is created, conveyed, and then dropped into the rolling flames. // 3. Experience catharsis.
We didn't start the fire
They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen? Amid the worst wildfire season in history, ProPublica reports on the science supporting prescribed burns; the military mindset and perverse financial incentives standing in the way; and attempts to change attitudes so government officials can follow the science.
Japanese Firemen’s Coats (19th century)
Japanese Firemen’s Coats (19th century) "Each firefighter in a given brigade was outfitted with a special reversible coat , plain but for the name of the brigade on one side and decorated with richly symbolic imagery on the other."
Post Office Delivery Trucks Keep Catching on Fire
Hundreds of the iconic Post Office delivery trucks have caught on fire in recent years, thanks to a 30-year-old fleet and a manufactured budget crisis. [Vice] [more inside]
Apollo Masters fire
One of the only two vinyl lacquer production companies in the world, the Apollo Masters facility in Banning CA, burned down on February 6th. [more inside]
Small aboriginal fires to prevent big fires in Australia
Essentially, the technique involves burning a small patch in mild conditions, such as cool mornings or late afternoons in late autumn and early winter, and when there is little breeze. [more inside]
What's going on with the Notre Dame restoration?
Notre Dame cathedral fire could ease France's shortage of artisans
"I had been playing with the idea for a while, but the fire was the final straw that convinced me to become a stonemason" [more inside]
"I had been playing with the idea for a while, but the fire was the final straw that convinced me to become a stonemason" [more inside]
"The truck was undamaged, having made its saving throw."
Everyday Carry
The Underground Men
When an aspiring tech entrepreneur met a self-styled crypto guru online his search for funding would end up underneath a suburban Maryland home. How 4chan-fuelled paranoia and a homemade nuclear bunker lead to tragedy. (CW: graphic description of death by fire). [more inside]
Trouble in Paradise
The Devastation
Amazon fires deepen a split between Brazil’s evangelicals and their fellow Christians.
On the ground in Porto Velho "There are hundreds of different tribes around here but in this reservation there were two very remote tribes that had almost no contact with outsiders and they seem to have just disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to them. I think they might have just killed them all.”
Brazil's environmental changes under Bolsonaro who has a history of controversy.
Pre last years election the Atlantic pointed out The Rise of the Brazilian Evangelicals who are Are Gaining Power.
Amazon fires deepen a split between Brazil’s evangelicals and their fellow Christians.
On the ground in Porto Velho "There are hundreds of different tribes around here but in this reservation there were two very remote tribes that had almost no contact with outsiders and they seem to have just disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to them. I think they might have just killed them all.”
Brazil's environmental changes under Bolsonaro who has a history of controversy.
Pre last years election the Atlantic pointed out The Rise of the Brazilian Evangelicals who are Are Gaining Power.
"And it's here. Almost."
It took nearly 30 minutes before they realized their mistake
Batteries, included
The lab of famous battery scientist John Goodenough is working on Lithium batteries that use powdered glass as an electrolyte . One of the great advantages to this construction is reducing the well known risk of lithium battery explosions, which is leading to increasing fires in the scrap industry, and increasing the challenge of recycling. [more inside]
The Hotshots of Helltown
The November 2018 Camp Fire in northern California destroyed the town of Paradise and would have consumed the nearby, ironically named Helltown except for a few brave homeowners who went to heroic lenghts to protect a one mile stretch of road as the fire crept in from all sides. This is the story of the hotshots of Helltown.
Spira, Spera - Victor Hugo
Notre-Dame de Paris, the French Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in Paris, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, has burned in a conflagration unrivalled since at least WWII, started accidentally, perhaps in the renovation work. But "spira, spera" -- breathe, and hope -- there has been no loss of life, only one reported injury, and the shell of the building appears (at this hour) to have been saved. "Cette cathédrale, nous la rebâtirons," declares Emmanuel Macron. ("The Cathedral, we will rebuild it.") [more inside]
asking the important questions
Matt Levine, Money Stuff, Bloomberg: Should index funds be illegal?
I have been writing about it since 2015, and I’ve enjoyed phrasing the question maximally as “should index funds be illegal?” That is a little bit of a joke, but not really, because if you take this stuff seriously enough then it does seem like large diversified shareholders—index funds but also other mutual funds—would pose a problem under the antitrust laws, and you’d have to do something about them. One thing I should say about this theory is that, as far as I can tell, almost no one who works in the capital markets or corporate America takes it seriously.[more inside]
PG&E to file for bankruptcy
The California Energy Utility That May Have Sparked the Deadly Camp Fire Has Filed for Bankruptcy Pacific Gas and Electric, the country's largest utility company is filing for chapter 11. PG&E faces billions of dollars in liability from wildfires exacerbated by rising temperatures and drought. The Problems with PG&E in the state have only grown since The 2010 San Bruno Pipeline Explosion, and now to avoid liability for multiple fires in the state that were caused by the utility, they're filing for bankruptcy. [more inside]
The California indigenous peoples using fire for agroforestry
Prescribed burning is the main tool in the Karuk and Yoruk tribes' agroforestry systems, which encourages proliferation of traditional foods, herbs, and medicines. [more inside]
Ghost Ship
Max Harris and the aftermath of the Ghost Ship fire A look at one of the two men who have been named culpable in the Ghost Ship artist's collective fire. (SLNYT)
Previously
The four elements: Water, Wind, Fire and Soap
après nous, l'enfer
The 2018 fire season in California has been the deadliest and most destructive in the state's history, and made visible smoke across the USA. The Carr Fire, in and around Redding, killed eight as it burned 359 square miles over a month and a week, whose deadliest day came from a fire tornado, a long 150 Minutes of Hell
The tornado signified with horrifying clarity the reality California faces. As wildfire season intensifies, conflagrations will increasingly defy efforts to control them, becoming more powerful and erratic as they race into communities, striking in ways that once seemed unfathomable. “As much as I hate to say it, this is what the future of wildfires looks like[ed],” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “Except the acceleration hasn't ended yet.”[more inside]
As deadly flames approached, she called her daughters to say goodbye
There is much to say when death encroaches. But when you only have a moment, you just say the truth.
The library was a map of my life as a reader, and later a writer
Jeff Abbott, best-selling author of mysteries and thrillers, had amassed a personal library of more than 2,500 books. Then his house was struck by lightning, and he had to restart the "annex to [his] imagination" from scratch.
"Two hundred years of work research and knowledge were lost."
The fire at Rio de Janeiro’s 200-year-old National Museum began after it closed to the public on Sunday and raged into the night. There were no reports of injuries, but the loss to Brazilian science, history and culture was incalculable, two of its vice-directors said. “It was the biggest natural history museum in Latin America. We have invaluable collections. Collections that are over 100 years old,” Cristiana Serejo, one of the museum’s vice directors, told the G1 news site. Marina Silva, a former environment minister and candidate in October’s presidential elections said the fire was like “a lobotomy of the Brazilian memory”. Luiz Duarte, another vice-director, told TV Globo: “It is an unbearable catastrophe. It is 200 years of this country’s heritage. It is 200 years of memory. It is 200 years of science. It is 200 years of culture, of education.”