the heat wave and the fires burning around the country

[old man mavic]

lets all think for a moment ,of all those people who have lost their homes and lively hoods, in the many burning areas of the UK, due to the unprecedented heat, being experienced today ,as of now there are no reported loss of lives ,in the fires

 

[MA2 317]

Heard a news report this morning about an airport north of London that had to shut down due to the heat and the damage it caused to the runway(s).



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[Yorkshire_Pud]

@old man mavic Did you see the clip of that Spaniard running from the digger?.......Lucky chap, scarey stuff.

I have no experience of flame fronts but I often wonder, could running through the flame front to the burnt out area be safer than running away from an advanciing flame front? I.e. with 'grass fires' could the flame front be thin enough?
A bit like Formula 1 crash avoidance, aim for where the crashed car/s was/were

 

[MA2 317]

A bit like Formula 1 crash avoidance, aim for where the crash car/s was/

Indy cars too!


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[Skywatcher2001]

old man mavic from my neck of the woods . . . I agree. I was actually up in Owens Valley CA (Mammoths Lakes Area) the weekend the Sequoia Fire broke out (within 40 miles). Not only are you chaps seeing families upended there but here we are seeing thousand year old ecosystems destroyed . . . . There is a Sequoia Grizzly Giant there well over 3,000 years old.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Will fire kill a Sequoia? I hope not but there is something in the back of my mind about the big ones being somewhat fire resistant, thick bark or something.

 

[Robert Prior]

I have no experience of flame fronts but I often wonder, could running through the flame front to the burnt out area be safer than running away from an advanciing flame front? I.e. with 'grass fires' could the flame front be thin enough?

Possibly, if you have enough protection — including air supply (or can hold your breath). You do not want to breath superheated air.

I've fought grass fires. 12-foot flames and they move fast: up to 25 km/h. You do not want to piss around if one is close.

You might be better off starting a small counterfire and lying in the burned-out patch it leaves. (Facedown and cover all exposed skin.) A move of desperation, but if you're contemplating running through flames you are desperate…

("Cold Missouri Waters" — a song about the Mann Gulch fire.)

If you want to play with scenarios, pick up a copy of Smokejumpers. The fire spread rules are based on the fire spread model used by Canadian firefighters. I've used it in class to help students understand wildfire behaviour.

SMOKEJUMPERS

microgamedesigngroup.com

I'm not a professional firefighter, just been in the wrong place at the wrong time on the Prairies.

This wildfire isn't moving very fast, but the flame front is still pretty impressive:

Using Mavic 3 for wildlife sequence

Had a go this week at telling a story of a fire threatening a black-footed rock wallaby colony in outback Australia. You'll notice I also used the optical 7X on a few occasions, would love to know your thoughts on how it matches up with the rest as well. I wont leave this online for too long...

mavicpilots.com

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I have seen a film about a groups of bush fire fighters that got caught out by a fire jumping or something and they dug in and covered themselves with fire blankets or something. Unfortunately they didn't survive.

t if you're contemplating running through flames you are desperate…

Not really contemplating it, it's just that I thought that if you are caught down wind of a fire your chances of actually out running it down wind must be pretty slim, ditto running cross wind if the flame front is long.
Video of the Spaniard

he might have been on the 'side' of the fire wrt to wind.

The Australian clip (Rock Wallabies) was the one that really brought the running through the flames thinking to the fore, its flame front was quite thin..

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Very sad situation for sure. Sadly the rest of the world has been going through this for a few years. USA towns leveled, Canadian towns leveled and no one cares to address the real problem. Now the UK is going through some tough times. Things will not get better anytime soon.

 

[Robert Prior]

if you are caught down wind of a fire your chances of actually out running it down wind must be pretty slim

Depending on the wind, quite slim.

That Spaniard looks like he ran through then rolled to put out his clothes (which appeared to be partially burned off). Lucky chap — there are so many ways that move could have ended badly. Not as badly as staying in his digger, of course.

The Australian clip (Rock Wallabies) was the one that really brought the running through the flames thinking to the fore, its flame front was quite thin..

Fuel was pretty sparse, too. Certainly the flames were thinner than the fire I was caught in.

 

[AZDave]

@old man mavic Did you see the clip of that Spaniard running from the digger?.......Lucky chap, scarey stuff.

I have no experience of flame fronts but I often wonder, could running through the flame front to the burnt out area be safer than running away from an advanciing flame front? I.e. with 'grass fires' could the flame front be thin enough?
A bit like Formula 1 crash avoidance, aim for where the crashed car/s was/were

I live in southern Arizona and have experienced first hand two major wildland fires in the last 20 years, with flames 6 to 8 feet high in the grass and tens of feet high in the trees. It might be possible to run through the fire front without dying, but you'd have to be able to hold your breath and unless you had protection for your skin you'd probably wish you had died. The damage to skin from the hot gases would be almost instantaneous, and even if you made it through the flames you'd probably succumb to the smoke behind the flames.

During the most recent fire 9 years ago, we had to drive out a single lane road with 6 foot high flames on either side of us. We had the windows rolled up and the heat was still unbearable. We only had to drive a few hundred feet like that (which took only about ten seconds), and if we would have had to drive much longer the paint would have blistered off the car.

Our lot is at the mouth of a steep canyon. I watched the fire race 400 feet up the walls of the canyon in about thirty seconds. I estimate the flames were 200 feet high. The firefighters won't even go into canyons like that ... it's pure suicide.

Our lot is a rocky four acres with our house pretty much in the center of it. The grass gets to be about 3 ... some years 4 ... feet high, and as soon as it's dry at the end of the summer monsoons I scalp the entire lot with a gas powered string weed trimmer. It takes me about three weeks to do it, but it's a requirement.