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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know

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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant

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Speaker 1: right over there, and this is stuff you should not

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Speaker 1: That was my Shatner. I told you I worked with him,

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Speaker 1: I think on a podcast. Right. He was puffy and

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Speaker 1: stuff in a suit. He's nice though, right, he was

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Speaker 1: super nice. And heck I uh, every time I'm wearing

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Speaker 1: wear a suit, I'm puffy and stuff in a suit.

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Speaker 1: So I'm poured into my suits, poured in liquid. That's great. So,

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Speaker 1: and that's absolutely not true, by the way, Chuck. Yes, Um,

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Speaker 1: I have a couple of stories for you. I have

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Speaker 1: a specific story for you. But you have this too, right,

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Speaker 1: did I give you this? Okay? So? Um? In uh

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Speaker 1: two thousand two right, there is a guy who worked

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Speaker 1: for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and he was a

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Speaker 1: firefighter for them. Right, he went onto the Arizona Apache

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Speaker 1: Reservation and he started a wildfire intentionally. So he's an arsonist. Yes,

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Speaker 1: he's not an arsonist for fun or because he's crazy,

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Speaker 1: Um or what was it? Uh? He was curious, highly curious.

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Speaker 1: Remember that was a trade, that was trade curiosity setting fires. Um.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to work, right, Leonard greg Leonard greg was

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Speaker 1: his name. Um, he uh set this fire and unbeknownst

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Speaker 1: to him, at the same time you do. There's a woman,

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Speaker 1: um who had run out of gas not too far away, right, um,

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Speaker 1: and she saw that there was a news helicopter covering

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Speaker 1: the fire that Leonard greg had just said. She didn't

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Speaker 1: know about either, but she didn't feel like walking, or

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Speaker 1: she felt like she couldn't walk, so she set a

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Speaker 1: fire to try to get the attention of the news

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Speaker 1: helicopter so it would come rescue her so she didn't

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Speaker 1: have to walk to go get gas. That's pretty amazingly awful. So, UM,

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Speaker 1: I guess her last name was chet is Key. Because

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Speaker 1: the Rodeo Fire, which is what they called the fire

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Speaker 1: that Leonard Gregg started, collided with the Chetisky fire, and um,

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Speaker 1: it was a conflagration. Ultimately four hundred and sixty seven

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Speaker 1: thousand acres burned, including four and it was the largest

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Speaker 1: fire in Arizona's history. And this is two thou So Greg,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to the woman, but Greg

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Speaker 1: was found guilty of arson since the ten years in

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Speaker 1: order to pay twenty eight million dollars, which as an

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Speaker 1: occasional firefighter for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I would

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Speaker 1: imagine he didn't have. Yeah, when that never happens. You

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Speaker 1: always see that, like their awards so and so this,

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Speaker 1: and they just don't pay. It's just like a symbolic award.

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Speaker 1: I guess you'll know you'll never make more than your

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Speaker 1: wages again kind of thing. Yeah, but what's crazy is

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Speaker 1: not just that this lady set this fire because she

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Speaker 1: wanted to get the attention of a news copter, or

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Speaker 1: that this guy set a fire because of a desire

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Speaker 1: to get work to put the fire out, but because

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Speaker 1: they're not the only people who have done stupid stuff

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Speaker 1: like this. They follow in a long, grand tradition of

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Speaker 1: people who have set wildfires for all sorts of different reasons,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of them to get work. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: have a list here, And of course we're not we're

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Speaker 1: going to praise the firefighters, not like we're saying a

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Speaker 1: lot of these firefighters starting fires. But it does happen

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Speaker 1: more than you would think. I I imagine we'll probably

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Speaker 1: throw some more out later on. But first, chuckers, right,

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Speaker 1: let's get to wildfires, how they work, what affects them.

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Speaker 1: The fire triangle. Yeah, we should probably start with the

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Speaker 1: fire triangle because it relates to not just forest fires

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Speaker 1: or wildfires, but all fires. All fire, Josh requires three things.

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Speaker 1: Um fuel obviously to burn air, to get oxygen to

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Speaker 1: the fire, because we know that, we all knows, we

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Speaker 1: all know that makes the fire burn hotter and bigger.

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Speaker 1: And then the heat source to bring the fuel to

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Speaker 1: the ignition temperature to begin with. And they call that

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Speaker 1: the fire triangle. And the goal of a wild firefighter

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Speaker 1: and or I guess probably more so a wild firefighter

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Speaker 1: is to remove one of those three components from the

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Speaker 1: scene and that will give them a better chance of

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Speaker 1: extinguishing the fire. Yeah, if you can bring the temperature down,

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Speaker 1: or starve the fire of oxygen something or get rid

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Speaker 1: of the fuel, right, yeah, all three those things have

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Speaker 1: to exist. And the reason why, like if you look

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Speaker 1: at wood as a fuel would as it pertains to fire,

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Speaker 1: is just a um solid store of hydrocarbons that are

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Speaker 1: released when the wood is heated to the flash point,

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Speaker 1: to the flash point. Um, and those hydrocarbons at the

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Speaker 1: flash point bind with oxygen in the air and it

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Speaker 1: can busts thanks to the spark, thanks to the heat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the flash point. Everything has a flash point. Apparently

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Speaker 1: everything will burst into flames at some point, like a

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Speaker 1: fahrenhyp four one is supposed to be the flash point

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Speaker 1: of books. Yes, right, yes, which is very cool. Title

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Speaker 1: woods flash point is um five hundred and seventy seventy

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Speaker 1: two degrees fahrenheit three D if you're into celsius, if

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Speaker 1: you're that kind of thing, and uh, that's when would

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Speaker 1: will burst into flames. Yes. Um. I've got a couple

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Speaker 1: of just quick stats here about five million acres of

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Speaker 1: woodland burn every year in the United States, and I

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Speaker 1: got a different set. It was one point two million.

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Speaker 1: But then I looked I saw that that stato. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I looked at the past decade five point nine million,

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Speaker 1: five point to nine point three nine point eight eight

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Speaker 1: point six eight four or seven three and seven. So

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Speaker 1: that's about five So I trust that one. And that

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Speaker 1: is dude. In two thousand nine, I'm sorry, let's go

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Speaker 1: to two thousand and six. There were ninety six thousand,

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Speaker 1: three five fires, wildfires in the US. It's a lot

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Speaker 1: of wildfires, isn't it crazy? And what's crazy is that

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Speaker 1: four fits of those are started by human activity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a little more than four fasts And that's nuts. Like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's a whole thing called lightning season, right

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Speaker 1: that when combined with this, um, this type of weather

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Speaker 1: called fire weather, which is very very dry, maybe drought

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Speaker 1: like conditions, um during warm summer months when it's very

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Speaker 1: hot out. Um. And all it takes is like apparently

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Speaker 1: like a train wheel causing a spark off of off

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Speaker 1: of the rail into some tinder and then bam, you've

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Speaker 1: got a wildfire. Um. But even all those uh don't

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Speaker 1: account for more than a fifth of wildfires. The rest

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Speaker 1: are like people throwing cigarettes out or looking for work

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Speaker 1: as firefighters, or not putting out their fire when they're camping. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's a big one to UM. I have another couple

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Speaker 1: of stats from FEMA. There are total there are a

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventies six thousand intentionally set outdoor fires every

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Speaker 1: year in the United States. And a lot of those

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Speaker 1: I think, uh, they're prescribed burns. Right. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: that that's like people. Yeah, but it's uh only you

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Speaker 1: know a certain amount of those are wild I think

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Speaker 1: sixty three are outdoor fires vegetation fires. So the others

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Speaker 1: are like trash fires, rubbish fires. Yeah, exactly, all of

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Speaker 1: them make smoky the bear weep. Yeah. True. So, um,

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Speaker 1: there's fire weather, there's lightning season. Four fifths the fires

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Speaker 1: are started by humans, more than four fifths, he said.

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Speaker 1: We know about the fire triangle, right, So once combustion

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Speaker 1: is started from whatever the sources, there's a lot of factors.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, not necessarily. There's three large factors that combine too.

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Speaker 1: I guess give us an idea of what's going to

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Speaker 1: happen with this forest fire right now? Are these are these?

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Speaker 1: Fuel characteristics are like how facet will spread? No, it's fuel, weather,

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Speaker 1: and topography. Those are the big three. And then each

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Speaker 1: of those kind of has a few subcategories. But the

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Speaker 1: but fuel, the amount of the type of fuel, the

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Speaker 1: the type of weather that that's going on, like is

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Speaker 1: it fire weather is it not? And then topography the

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Speaker 1: lay of the land like if it's a lake, that's

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Speaker 1: not good topography for a forest fire. And I'm going

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Speaker 1: to use forest fire and wildfire interchangeably. I didn't see

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Speaker 1: anything that said that they're not one and the same.

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Speaker 1: Well they are today at least forest fire just kind

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Speaker 1: of rolls off the tongue a little more for me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my thick tongue. Law said wildfire, And I keep saying

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Speaker 1: wildflower to Jerry? Is it wildflower or wide fire? What

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Speaker 1: wide fire gonna go? Forest fire? It could be a

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Speaker 1: wide fires. Uh so fuel Uh, you need a fuel

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Speaker 1: obviously to get the wildfire burning. In what they call

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Speaker 1: the they call it a fuel load is the amount

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Speaker 1: and it's a measured amount of fuel available per unit

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Speaker 1: area and it's usually tons per acre. So they there

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Speaker 1: they can actually they're good enough to guestimate that like

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Speaker 1: the biomass of like all this dry grass. Yeah, like

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Speaker 1: they know, like, man, this is gonna be a bad

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Speaker 1: one because we've got to you know, I don't have

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Speaker 1: any numbers, but whatever fuel load in this area of

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Speaker 1: the Colorado National Forest. And what's interesting is is, um

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Speaker 1: you would think that the fuel load, if you do

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Speaker 1: it in weight, because it's tons per acre, right, that

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Speaker 1: depending on the type of fuel, like if it's grass,

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Speaker 1: if it's lighter, that it's going to burn more quickly

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Speaker 1: because it has less of water. Yeah, right, true, because

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Speaker 1: that's a characteristic of the type of fuel, is how

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Speaker 1: how much moisture it has in it. Yeah, And the

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Speaker 1: density like twigs obviously will burn faster for two reasons.

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Speaker 1: One it's because there's it's not as densely packed, because

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Speaker 1: which will give it more oxygen. Yeah, there's less surface area. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the second is it's smaller and it dries out

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Speaker 1: more quickly. Yeah, it's not like drying a tree or

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Speaker 1: a log. Just's got to take a long time to

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Speaker 1: dry out. Right. And then the same goes for density

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Speaker 1: with like say tots of pine straw. Right, if it's

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Speaker 1: very densely packed, Um, it's going to retain moisture in

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Speaker 1: the middle, which makes it harder to burn. Anytime you've

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Speaker 1: ever set pine straw on fire, you know, kid, it

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Speaker 1: smokes a lot if you'd throw a big mess on

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Speaker 1: your fire, right. But if it's kind of spread out,

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Speaker 1: it's uh, it drives more easily and it lets more

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Speaker 1: oxygen in between it, which is another need for fuel. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the small fuel material they call flashy fuels and

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Speaker 1: were like four fingered, right, and on a chemical level,

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Speaker 1: they it varies on how long it takes these things

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Speaker 1: to ignite as well, beyond the fact that it's just

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Speaker 1: like more dense or bigger or more spread out. Right,

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Speaker 1: Like when I go camping, I will dry out camp

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Speaker 1: firewood beside the fire, and you can hear it, says,

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Speaker 1: you can see it. You can see the moisture sizzling

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Speaker 1: from the log and then you just inch it closer

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Speaker 1: and it'll just boom flash point. That's how it happens. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Oh another thing, josh, Um, As the fire pushes forward,

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Speaker 1: it's what it's gonna be doing. Because there's so much

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Speaker 1: heat associated with it and smoke, it's gonna dry out

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Speaker 1: the stuff, the fuel in front of it. So by

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Speaker 1: the time it gets there potentially, I mean, that's why

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Speaker 1: wildfire happens. By the time it gets there, it's already

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Speaker 1: dry and right for the picking, and it's just gonna

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Speaker 1: keep burning and keep burning. There's nothing to stop it. Basically,

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Speaker 1: that's right. It feeds itself. Um something else that feeds it.

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Speaker 1: So that was fuel, right. Yeah. The second category or

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Speaker 1: of factor that really determines how wildfire is going to

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Speaker 1: go is um weather big time. And you know when

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Speaker 1: you think of weather, you think, I will you know, rain, snow,

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Speaker 1: if it's raining, then of course the wildfire is gonna

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Speaker 1: go out. They point that out in here too, But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I thought, okay, I thought, um, Kevin went to great, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he definitely he dotted his eye on that one. He did,

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Speaker 1: because yes, obviously, if it's pouring down rain, it's going

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Speaker 1: to keep everything moist or if it's been raining for

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Speaker 1: a while, humidity helps big time. But the aspect of weather,

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Speaker 1: um that probably has more of an effect than any

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Speaker 1: is wind at So you've got wind outside of the fire,

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Speaker 1: which is going to push it along, push it in

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Speaker 1: one direction or another. Well, it's very unpredictable. That's one

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Speaker 1: of the things the winds, especially the dry Santa Anas

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Speaker 1: in California. It's already hot and dry wind. So it

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Speaker 1: might as well be fuel, right, Well, I guess it's

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Speaker 1: sort of his fuel well traditionally, but it doesn't. It's

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Speaker 1: not necessarily fuel. But it brings more oxygen to the

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Speaker 1: fuel too, exactly right, Um, So it pushes fire along.

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Speaker 1: It's an oxygen delivery system. Wind is um and it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: There's a guy who's interviewed in this article. His names

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Speaker 1: Dr Terry Clark at the National Center for Atmospheric research

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Speaker 1: and he's created this model called coupled fire atmospheric dynamics.

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Speaker 1: Pretty cool, and basically what he's doing is figuring out

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Speaker 1: how fire interacts with the surrounding atmosphere and vice versa,

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Speaker 1: because apparently they feed off of each other. Yeah, fire

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Speaker 1: can create its own weather system and weather pattern. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you just seen it before. Like in a really hot fire,

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Speaker 1: these little tornadoes come up. It's a firewhirl, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: those can be enormous. It's basically like the heat from

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Speaker 1: the fire creates a vortex, and the vortex is customarily horizontal,

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Speaker 1: but if something gets under it, it can stand upright

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Speaker 1: and it becomes a fire tornado that can throw the

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Speaker 1: whole logs. I can throw a burning tree like a mile.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's a monster, and it can

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Speaker 1: throw it a mile into where there previously was no fire.

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Speaker 1: And that's why fire forest fires are so hard to fight.

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Speaker 1: One reason why they are because all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: you're fighting it on one front and you've seen them

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Speaker 1: to leap from the tree tops and all of a sudden, dude,

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Speaker 1: it's on this side of the mountain now, right. It's

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Speaker 1: scary stuff, and treetops specifically by the way, that's a

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Speaker 1: that's a type of fire onto itself. It's that's that's

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Speaker 1: a crown fire, is what it's called. That's right. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's a these uh fire whirls, right, the fire tornadoes

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Speaker 1: they don't necessarily have to follow that. That um, that

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Speaker 1: process of starting out horizontally and standing up and then

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Speaker 1: moving like a tornado. There's another thing called a hairpin fireworld.

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Speaker 1: Is this the forward burst? This is amazing. Basically it's

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Speaker 1: like the fire develops so much I guess heat, it's

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Speaker 1: vortexas do it's vortices do that. It shoots forward like

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Speaker 1: a lamethrower and apparently, uh, these things are they get

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Speaker 1: up to like sixty six ft wide, right yeah, Um,

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Speaker 1: they can shoot three hundred plus feet at a hundred

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Speaker 1: miles an hour. It just all of a sudden, like

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Speaker 1: the fire just shot a hundred feet forward at a

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Speaker 1: hundred miles an hour and then in an instant, all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, year fire is going in a if

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Speaker 1: not a different direction and additional direction. Right Because tracking

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Speaker 1: these things, predicting these things, it's we've figured out or

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Speaker 1: Dr Terry Clark has figured out, um that it's not

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Speaker 1: just the atmospheric conditions. It's the fire creating its own stuff,

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Speaker 1: its own wind, and just moving from both of these

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Speaker 1: and they call that spotting. If if they if it

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Speaker 1: tosses embers to another spot, they call that spotting. And

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Speaker 1: if it if it starts a fire obviously right. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then temperature also is another factor. If it's warm

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Speaker 1: out hot, um, you know, obviously that's an extra sixty

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Speaker 1: hundred degrees that the temper that the sun doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to heat something up to. Yeah you know, yeah, you never.

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Speaker 1: That's why they burned mostly or most hot and wild

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Speaker 1: during the day during the afternoon. Um. California. Like, I

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Speaker 1: had to get used to camping in California because in Georgia,

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Speaker 1: George is like a rainforest man. It's like there's never

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Speaker 1: any fire threat. No. Plus it's so muggy. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: is so muggy all the time. There's no way you

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Speaker 1: couldn't start a fire if you want to. You can't

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Speaker 1: even strike a match outside right now. But uh, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm just used to camping with a great, big, awesome

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Speaker 1: camp fire. But once I headed west into like Colorado

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Speaker 1: and New Mexico and California, they have you know, every

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Speaker 1: state park. In national park, you go to a national forest,

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Speaker 1: says have signs that say you know, fire risk UM high,

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Speaker 1: no fires at all, or you have to apply for

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Speaker 1: a fire permit with the the camp camp rangers, camp

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Speaker 1: rangers forest rangers, and uh, I had to get used

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Speaker 1: to either sneaking my fire, which is not right and

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Speaker 1: risking fine, or not having one at all, which why

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Speaker 1: don't you just go apply for a permit? Well, sometimes

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Speaker 1: it was the fire risk was so high you're not

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Speaker 1: supposed to have one at all, And I would still

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Speaker 1: have one. And I probably shouldn't be saying that, but

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Speaker 1: I'm super super careful. I didn't when I when I

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Speaker 1: was living in the van for a little while. UM,

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Speaker 1: I camped on the northern rim of the Grand Canyon

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Speaker 1: and I started a fire, but I don't I didn't

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Speaker 1: see any signs that said no fire or anything, but

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Speaker 1: I wasn't. I could have totally missed it. Probably no

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Speaker 1: one said anything, though. Yeah, and you know what, I

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Speaker 1: was completely irresponsible for doing that. Just let me go

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Speaker 1: on record and say that it was not the right

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Speaker 1: thing to do, even though I was super careful, because

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Speaker 1: accidents happened and I could have easily been that jerk

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Speaker 1: that like didn't see the ember get away that started

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Speaker 1: a forest fire. So I want to say, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you spark from a train's wheel can start a

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Speaker 1: forest fire, then yes, very easily a fire that you

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Speaker 1: started start a forest fire. That was very good, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: way to see o A. Well, I didn't want to

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Speaker 1: sound like I was bragging about it, like, oh, I

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Speaker 1: was super careful. So it was cool. This it was

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Speaker 1: not cool. There's this guy on um, yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: take your break. Okay. Do you ever watch Malcolm in

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Speaker 1: the Middle, Oh yeah, Um, there was this one. There

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Speaker 1: was this one scene um where the mom was telling

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Speaker 1: the dad he was he was saying that she was

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Speaker 1: giving him grief about the stories that he was telling

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Speaker 1: his kids, and he's like, they're cautionary tales, and she

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Speaker 1: goes cautionary tales doing him with It was so cool.

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Speaker 1: I enjoyed that show for a long time. But like

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Speaker 1: all shows when it's about kids, when they got a

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Speaker 1: little too old that you know, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: his voice is down. Well, he he cashed out, like

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Speaker 1: right about that time, he was like I'm out. Malcolm

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Speaker 1: himself he was like, I've I've got fifteen Porsches and

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Speaker 1: I'm very happy. I'm done. Well, yeah he went onto

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Speaker 1: this big movie career. Yeah, that's very sorry. I Cranston

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Speaker 1: though he's un't seen Breaking Bad, but it's supposed to

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Speaker 1: be amazing, all right. The last thing, Josh is typography.

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Speaker 1: That's what we talked about. A steep slope, it's gonna

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Speaker 1: spread faster, usually spreads uphill, even though leave it to

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Speaker 1: Australia to do something weird. Dr Terry Clark says he

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Speaker 1: has a case study in Australia where the fire actually

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Speaker 1: burned down a sloped mountain, which is pretty unusual. Yes,

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Speaker 1: normally it burns up for a couple of reasons. The

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Speaker 1: ambient wind um usually blows uphill. Um the steeper the

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Speaker 1: slope the better because the fire, the smoke, in the heat,

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Speaker 1: and the well for the fire. As concerned, it's like,

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Speaker 1: give me a steep mountain, because the fire would be

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Speaker 1: standing almost upright then and the smoke and the heat

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Speaker 1: coming off the fire is um really drying out the

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Speaker 1: fuel load ahead. So most of the time they burned

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Speaker 1: upward up the mountain, and then they reached the crest

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Speaker 1: and they're like, I should have thought this through because

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Speaker 1: now I have to go down and I can't, which

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Speaker 1: is good for fighting the fire, not good for the fire.

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Speaker 1: Um they can besides burning all the vegetation, which is

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Speaker 1: can be really bad, h uh. It can lead to

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Speaker 1: things like erosion and mud slides later on because you

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Speaker 1: mess with the with the ground like that and it's

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Speaker 1: not stable like it once was. Yeah, I mean, like

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Speaker 1: the one of the roles that roots a root system

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Speaker 1: plays is holding the ground in place. And if you've

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Speaker 1: burned the tree and the roots system out, it's just

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Speaker 1: soil and the nice heavy rain comes and and that

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Speaker 1: very thing happened josh in storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

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Speaker 1: Two thousand acre forest burned and the underbrush burned on

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Speaker 1: the steep slopes, and two months later they got a

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Speaker 1: lot of heavy rain and it literally poured tons of

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Speaker 1: mud and rock onto a stretch of Interstate seventy like

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Speaker 1: engulfing cars, sweeping them into the Colorado River, all because

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Speaker 1: of the fire months months ago. And we've seen one

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Speaker 1: slides before. Remember Guatemala. Yeah, remember, like down the mountain

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Speaker 1: there was still that path. You could see the where

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Speaker 1: the path standing on this village where they never unearthed

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Speaker 1: the people and it's like people's kids were running around. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was so sad. Where we were standing was like

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Speaker 1: six ft higher than it once was, right, yeah, right,

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Speaker 1: six at least I would say that's awful. So, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: if you want to put out a fire, well, first

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Speaker 1: of all, they're beneficial, though we should say that at

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Speaker 1: times burning the underbrush of a forest can prevent a

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Speaker 1: larger fire later on, so they do have like prescribed burns,

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Speaker 1: like you were talking about, Chuck, I inadvertently started a

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Speaker 1: book club by mentioning again recently, have you noticed a

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Speaker 1: lot of people have been writing and saying like, thanks man,

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Speaker 1: I'm starting Yeah, and they're like, what about Yes, it's

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00:21:35,920 --> 00:21:39,159
Speaker 1: another book that's a fake book though, oh is it?

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00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 1: It's yeah, that's the one where the guys like the

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Speaker 1: Chinese made it to South America or Mexico. So there's

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Speaker 1: about it. And I pilloried the guy. Okay, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: very he has very shaky, shaky evidence. That's fascinating stuff.

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Speaker 1: But well have we not podcasted on that. Let's do

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Speaker 1: it all right. I've read that today and I was like,

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Speaker 1: why haven't we done this yet? We can totally do it.

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Speaker 1: I think it took a little while for me for

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Speaker 1: the bitterness to like leave my mouth like after I

391
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Speaker 1: wrote that one, because the guy was getting tons of

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Speaker 1: pressed at the time. But anyway, anyway, anyone who's read

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Speaker 1: knows that North America it was basically a managed forest,

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Speaker 1: and one of the ways that it was managed prior

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Speaker 1: to Columbus was through prescribed burns. Like it there. It

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00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:27,040
Speaker 1: is very beneficially. It burns away the underbrush so you

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Speaker 1: have less potential for accidental fires. Right, Remember we talked

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Speaker 1: about recessions are kind of like that um and the

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Speaker 1: it gets rid of disease, provides nutrients in the soil

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Speaker 1: um awesome show after you'd like, you know, hit the

401
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Speaker 1: peace pipe, just kick back and watch a forest fire go.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about putting these things out. Josher's uh.

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Speaker 1: They have a couple of categories of the these elite firefighters.

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Speaker 1: They're called hot shots and smoke jumpers. The hot shots.

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Speaker 1: What's so funny, that's the names they give them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's pretty let's say that's pretty bad. A alright, hot

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00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 1: shots they work in twenty person teams and they are

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Speaker 1: trained there on the ground and they're trained to build

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Speaker 1: mainly to build fire breaks, and that is when they

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Speaker 1: strip the land of fuel ahead of the fire, or

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Speaker 1: they will burn it ahead of the fire. Yeah, to

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Speaker 1: stop it there have you ever seen that? Gods must

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Speaker 1: be crazy too. No, the dude, the main dude, I

414
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Speaker 1: can't remember his name. He um. There's a brush fire

415
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Speaker 1: coming like a prairie fire, savannah fire coming at the

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Speaker 1: main characters, and they're about to be engulfed in it.

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Speaker 1: And the main bushman runs and grabs like a piece

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Speaker 1: of grass or whatever and sets fire to the grass

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Speaker 1: behind them that they are running into and burns it

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Speaker 1: and then basically creates a circle. It's a backfire fire break,

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Speaker 1: and they're all standing circle where there's no more fuel

422
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 1: any longer. It's completely in otterly genius. Well it is.

423
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:07,919
Speaker 1: And it's also you have to be you have to

424
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 1: really know what you're doing. You know, you have to

425
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 1: put it in the exact right spot. I know that

426
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:14,120
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll do the firebreak and the fire will leap

427
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: over that, and then that's kind of make you feel like, yeah,

428
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: there's nothing we can do well in a lot of cases.

429
00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like I remember, was it two years ago?

430
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: Was or maybe it's three years ago when they had

431
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:31,640
Speaker 1: all those wildfires, and uh, I remember thinking, like what

432
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,720
Speaker 1: we can do medically, and like, we can, you know,

433
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,160
Speaker 1: put a man on the moon, but we can't stop

434
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 1: a fire. And it's that out of control because it's

435
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: so huge and overwhelming, very deep chuck. Actually, there's there's

436
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:49,359
Speaker 1: smoke jumpers, which are hotshots that jump out of airplanes, right, yeah,

437
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: and there's only a couple of hundred of them in

438
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: the US, which I can imagine. That's a really specialized

439
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: job and you have to be a tough mug to

440
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:02,719
Speaker 1: do that. That would be having long he did in Firestorm,

441
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 1: I think he was. I didn't see it. Not many

442
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: people saw it, actually, but I did copy the the

443
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 1: description from IMDb. I thought it was just about like

444
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 1: a firefighter and like forest fires, but of course, because

445
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:20,120
Speaker 1: it's Hollywood, they added some plot to it. Firefighter Jesse

446
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: Graves has to save ornithologist Jennifer and other people in

447
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: a forest fire. Like I thought that was it, but no,

448
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: it was set up by the lawyer of a convicted killer,

449
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 1: Earl Shay, who escaped from prison with several of his inmates,

450
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: posing his firefighters to recover thirty seven million and stashed loot.

451
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: So they were acting. They started the fire and purpose

452
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: it was sort of like the guys who posed as

453
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: uh ambulance drivers to get the dude out of prison.

454
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: That sounds awesome, actually, I mean the plot description sounds

455
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:52,920
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. You can tell you hear like Howie Long,

456
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,919
Speaker 1: it's going to be awful. But like, I'm sure the

457
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 1: writer of that was like, okay, I'm honestly yeah. Then

458
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: he hears it's gonna be Firestorm starring how He Long,

459
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm sure that the writer, Alan Smithy

460
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: was pretty psyched about his project for a little while.

461
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 1: So chuck, oh, uh, you can fight a fire using

462
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:20,480
Speaker 1: an air corps right, Oh yeah, that dropped fire retardant

463
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: on the fire. You've seen the news footage the red stuff. Yes,

464
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 1: Or they can drop tons of water and have you

465
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 1: ever heard that urban legend? M oh yeah, but what

466
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: is it? So there there is a forest fire somewhere

467
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: we'll say California, and they put it out, and like

468
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: six months later or whatever, some hikers walking through this

469
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: area and looks up and notices that there's a scuba

470
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,239
Speaker 1: diver stuck in a tree right with the rebreather on

471
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: and the the mask on and the flippers and everything,

472
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: and um, he's dead. And the hiker can't figure out

473
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 1: what's going on, and you know, leaves the forest and

474
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: tell somebody about it, and they start doing some research

475
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: and they figure out that he was scooped up by

476
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: one of these planes that goes out to the ocean

477
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: and like steps up a bunch of water and comes

478
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: and dumps it on the totally not true, right wildfire

479
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: now the fire, Yeah, it's a good one. I hate

480
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: it when you burst urban legends though, because it bursts

481
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:21,440
Speaker 1: so many bubbles there's right now, so it's so beneficial, Like, yes,

482
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: I know it's things right now, but in about forty

483
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 1: five seconds, you're going to feel like a smarter person.

484
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,320
Speaker 1: That's true. We mentioned the fire retardant that is not

485
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: just red stuff. It is um a chemical retardant containing

486
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:38,359
Speaker 1: phosphate fertilizer, and it cools down the fire slows it down.

487
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, it's main ingredient is water though, so

488
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: it's like super superwater as far as you know. It's

489
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,280
Speaker 1: thinking about when when I was reading about smoke jumpers, um,

490
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: the the human cannonball thing that Darka came up with.

491
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 1: It would be perfect for that. You can just be

492
00:27:53,520 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: like to shoot a bunch of smoke jumpers into the

493
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,159
Speaker 1: like over the fire into where you want them. You

494
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: don't need the parachutes or something. Yeah, I can't imagine

495
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: a smoke jumper's job like landing in the middle of

496
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, that's crazy stuff, amazing and um. We

497
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: also want to give a shout out to always great

498
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 1: movies starring Richard dreyfuss No always, Oh, I thought you

499
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 1: said we always want to give a shout always remember. Yeah,

500
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: that was a good movie. John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Richard

501
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: dreyfuss Um and that handsome dude who Yeah, that's right,

502
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,199
Speaker 1: the guy that played the handsome guy. And it was

503
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: a remake of I think a guy named Joe or

504
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:41,200
Speaker 1: something is h And I also I believe Audrey Hepburn's

505
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: final film was It. She was darling in it. She

506
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: was she was pretty till the very end is that

507
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: it is it? Okay, if you want to know more

508
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 1: about forest fires, you should go into the beloved venerable

509
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: website that we work for, how stuff works dot com

510
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: and type in wildfires and we have it as one word.

511
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: All right, Yes, uh. And if you type an ens

512
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: gonna bring up a very cool article. It's some really

513
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 1: great photography too. Um. I think the page one or

514
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: page zero pick is just awesome looking. Um. And since

515
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 1: I said handy search bar, that means it's time for

516
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: a listener mail. It's not. Oh yeah, that's right. I

517
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: don't have a listener mail for this one. Josh, and

518
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of what we could do instead.

519
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: Would you come up with? Well? I thought about a

520
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: call to action saying that you know, that'd be great

521
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: if you could go to iTunes and leave us a

522
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: rating and a review. Bad. Some people hate it when

523
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: we do that, you know, like we're just begging for

524
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: it or whatever. It's beats a pledge drive. Yes, it does, chuck.

525
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: You do we ask that much from you guys? Really? No, no,

526
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: so so actually we finally worked that up. Call to

527
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: action or how about some love for Jerry via email too?

528
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 1: It would be great. Oh that's nice. Some Jerry questions

529
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: or both. We'll tell you all about Jerry. Yeah, ask

530
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: us really personal questions about our life totally. We've just

531
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: been waiting for everyone to ask Yeah. Um, you can

532
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 1: ask those questions all sorts of ways. Um. First, if

533
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: you want to go give us a rating, a review

534
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: on iTunes, that's very nice if you thank you. Um.

535
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: But if you want to ask us a question about Jerry,

536
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us. We have our own Twitter

537
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,960
Speaker 1: feed up to fifteen thousand followers. Did you know that? Yes,

538
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast one word um. And then

539
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: of course we have our great Facebook page. UM. That's

540
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash Stuff you should Know And you

541
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: can send us a regular old email and you can

542
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 1: listen to us on WFMU if you're in New York

543
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: or New Jersey. Uh nine one point one Friday's between

544
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: seven and eight p m. Yes, the Stuff you should

545
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: know Radio Public Radio version or ninety point one in

546
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: the Hudson Vali Valley. Um. And and is that not

547
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: New York, New York's not in the Hudson Valley? Where's

548
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: the Hudson, New York State? So that's upstake? Is that

549
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: where Albany is? I keep hearing like everybody in law

550
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: in order to talk about when the image the governor

551
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: huh um. Or you can send us a regular old

552
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff works dot com.

553
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

554
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we

555
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought

556
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,320
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557
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: are you