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Speaker 1: Good morning everyone. It's July eleven. What No, it's modern times,

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Speaker 1: but this dates back to July eleven, and it is

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Speaker 1: my select pick of the week. How Wildfires Work. This

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Speaker 1: one's important. That's why I picked this one. Everybody. Wildfires

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Speaker 1: are still happening all over the place every year. It

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Speaker 1: seems like they're getting worse and worse because they are.

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Speaker 1: So this is a good podcast to educate yourself on

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Speaker 1: wildfires and how to prevent them, how to fight them,

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Speaker 1: and how they get started in the first place. So

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Speaker 1: enjoy How Wildfires Work. Right now, welcome to Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.

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Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant right over there, and this is stuff you

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Speaker 1: should not That was my shatner. I told you I

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Speaker 1: worked with him think on a podcast. Right, he was

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Speaker 1: puffy and stuffed in a suit. He's nice though, Right,

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Speaker 1: he was super nice. And heck, I uh, every time

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Speaker 1: I'm wearing wear a suit, I'm puffy and stuffed in

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Speaker 1: a suit. So I'm poured into my suits, poured in liquid.

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Speaker 1: That's great. So, and that's absolutely not true. By the way,

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Speaker 1: Chuck yes, Um, I have a couple of stories for you.

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Speaker 1: I have a specific story for you. But you have

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Speaker 1: this too, right, did I give you this? Yes? Okay?

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Speaker 1: So um in uh two thousand two, Right, there is

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Speaker 1: a guy who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs

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Speaker 1: and he was a firefighter for them. Right. He went

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Speaker 1: onto the Arizona Apache Reservation and he started a wildfire intentionally. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So he's an arsonist. Yes, he's not an arsonist for

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Speaker 1: fun or because he's crazy? Um? Or what was it? Uh?

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Speaker 1: He was curious, highly curious. Remember that was a trade,

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Speaker 1: that was trade curiosity setting fires. Um. He wanted work,

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Speaker 1: all right. Leonard Greg Leonard Greg was his name. Um.

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Speaker 1: He uh set this fire and unbeknownst to him, at

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Speaker 1: the same time you do. There's a woman, um, who

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Speaker 1: 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 that it would come rescue her. So she

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Speaker 1: didn't have to walk to go get gas. That's pretty

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Speaker 1: amazingly awful. So, um, I guess her last name was

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Speaker 1: chet is Key. Because the Rodeo Fire, which is what

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Speaker 1: they all, the fire that Leonard Gregg's started, collided with

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Speaker 1: the Cherisky fire, and um, it was a conflagration. Ultimately

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Speaker 1: four hundred and sixties seven thousand acres burned, including four

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Speaker 1: and it was the largest fire in Arizona's history. And

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Speaker 1: this is two thousand two. So Greg, I don't know

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Speaker 1: what happened to the woman, but Greg was found guilty

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Speaker 1: of arson since the ten years in order to pay

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Speaker 1: twenty eight million dollars, which as an occasional firefighter for

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Speaker 1: the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I would imagine he didn't have. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: when that never happens. You always see that, like their

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Speaker 1: awards so and so this, and they just don't pay.

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Speaker 1: It's just like a symbolic award. I guess right, you'll

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Speaker 1: know you'll never make more than fifty of your wages

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Speaker 1: again kind of thing. Yeah, But what's crazy is not

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Speaker 1: just that this lady set this fire because she wanted

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

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

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Speaker 1: get work to put the fire out. Yeah, 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 imagine we'll probably throw

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Speaker 1: some more out later on. But first, chuckers, right, let's

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Speaker 1: get to wildfires, how they work, what affects them. The

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

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Speaker 1: triangle because it relates to not just forest fires or wildfires,

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Speaker 1: but all fires. All fire Josh requires three things. Um

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Speaker 1: fuel obviously to burn air to get oxygen to the fire,

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Speaker 1: so you know that we all knows. We all know

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Speaker 1: that makes the fire burn hot and bigger. And then

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Speaker 1: the heat source to bring the fuel to the ignition

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

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Speaker 1: triangle and the goal of a wild firefighter, and I

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Speaker 1: guess probably more so a wild firefighter is to remove

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Speaker 1: one of those three components from the scene, and that

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Speaker 1: will give them a better chance of extinguishing the fire. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you can bring the temperature down, or starve the

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Speaker 1: fire of oxygen something, or get rid of the fuel. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: all three of those things have to exist. And the

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Speaker 1: reason why, Like, if you look at wood as a

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Speaker 1: fuel would as it pertains to fire is just a

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Speaker 1: um solid store of hydrocarbons that are released when the

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

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Speaker 1: point um, and those hydrocarbons at the flash point bind

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Speaker 1: with oxygen in the air and it combusts thanks to

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Speaker 1: the spark thanks to the heat. Yeah, and the flash point.

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Speaker 1: Everything has a flashpoint. Apparently everything will burst into flames

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Speaker 1: at some point. Like Ferret Hype four fifty one is

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Speaker 1: supposed to be the flash point of books. Yes, right, yes,

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Speaker 1: which is very cool. Title woods flash point is um

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Speaker 1: five hundred and seventy seventy two degrees fahrenheit three hundred

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Speaker 1: if you're into celsius, if you're into that kind of thing,

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Speaker 1: and uh, that's when would will burst into flames. Yes. Um,

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Speaker 1: I've got a couple of just quick stats here about

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Speaker 1: five million acres of woodland burn every year in the

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Speaker 1: United States, and I got a different set that it

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Speaker 1: was one point two million. But then I looked I

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Speaker 1: saw that that sat Yeah, I looked at the past

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Speaker 1: decade five point nine million, five point to nine point three,

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Speaker 1: nine point eight, eight point six eight four or seven

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Speaker 1: three and seven, So that's about five. So I trust

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Speaker 1: that one. And that is dude. In two thousand nine,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, let's go to two thousand and six, there

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Speaker 1: were ninety six thousand three five fires wildfires in the US.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of wildfires, isn't that crazy? And what's

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Speaker 1: crazy is that four So 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 bayam, 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: is 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 the 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 acts of arson. Yeah, but it's uh,

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Speaker 1: only you know a certain amount of those are wild

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Speaker 1: I think sixty three are outdoor fires vegetation fires. So

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Speaker 1: the others are like trash fires, rubbish fires. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 1: all of 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, so 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. Well, no,

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Speaker 1: not necessarily. There's three large factors that combine too. I

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

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Speaker 1: 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, in 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 in 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: wild flower to Jerry, is it wildflower or wide fire? Ye?

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Speaker 1: Wide fire? I wanna go forest fire could be a

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Speaker 1: wide fire, that's true. Huh uh. So fuel uh you

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Speaker 1: need a fuel obviously to get the wildfire burning. In

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Speaker 1: what they call the they call it a fuel load

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Speaker 1: is the amount and it's a measured amount of fuel

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Speaker 1: available per unit area and it's usually tons per acre.

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Speaker 1: So they there they can actually they're good enough to

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Speaker 1: guestimate that you like the biomass of like all this

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Speaker 1: dry grass. Yeah, like they know, like, man, this is

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Speaker 1: gonna be a bad one because we've got to you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't have any numbers, but whatever fuel load in

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Speaker 1: this area of the Colorado National Forest. And what's interesting

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Speaker 1: is is, um, you would think that the fuel load

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Speaker 1: if if you do it in weight, because it's tons

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Speaker 1: per acre, right, that depending on the type of fuel,

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Speaker 1: like if it's grass, if it's lighter, that it's going

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Speaker 1: to burn more quickly because it has less of water. Yeah, right, true,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: One is 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. It'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, k 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 a small fuel material they call flashy fuels. And

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Speaker 1: they were like four fingered rings, right, and on a

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Speaker 1: chemical level, they it varies on how long it takes

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Speaker 1: these things to ignite as well, beyond the fact that

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Speaker 1: it's just 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 ripe for the picking. Yeah, and it's just

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Speaker 1: gonna keep burning and keep burning. There's nothing to stop

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

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Speaker 1: that feeds it. So that was fuel, right. Yeah. The

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Speaker 1: second category or of factor that really determines how wildfire

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Speaker 1: is going to go is um weather. Yeah, big time.

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Speaker 1: And you know when you think of weather, you think,

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Speaker 1: I will you know, rain, snow, If it's raining, then

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Speaker 1: of course the wildfire is going to go out. They

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Speaker 1: point that out in here too. But yeah, I thought, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: I thought, um Kevin went to a great Yeah, he definitely.

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Speaker 1: He dotted his eye on that one, he did, because yes, obviously,

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Speaker 1: if it's pouring down rain, it's going to keep everything moist.

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Speaker 1: Or if it's been raining for a while, humidity helps,

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Speaker 1: yeah big time. But the aspect of weather, um that

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Speaker 1: probably has more of an effect than any is wind

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Speaker 1: at ye. 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 Ana's

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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 necessary

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Speaker 1: it's not necessarily fuel, but it brings more oxygen to

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Speaker 1: the fuel too. Yeah, exactly right. Um, so it pushes

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Speaker 1: fire along. It's an oxygen delivery system. Wind is um

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't. There's a guy who's interviewed in this article.

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Speaker 1: His names Dr Terry Clark at the National Center for

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Speaker 1: Atmospheric Research, and he's created this model called coupled Fire

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Speaker 1: Atmospheric Dynamics. Pretty cool, and basically what he's doing is

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Speaker 1: figuring out how fire interacts with the surrounding atmosphere and

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

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

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Speaker 1: you've 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 file uh forest fires are so hard

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Speaker 1: to fight. One reason why they are because all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, you're fighting in on one front and you've

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Speaker 1: seen them to leap from the tree tops, and all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, dude, it's on this side of the

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Speaker 1: mountain now right. It's scary stuff and treetops specifically, by

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Speaker 1: the way, that's a that's a type of fire onto itself.

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Speaker 1: It's that's that's a crown fire, is what it's called.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Um, there's a these uh fire whirls right,

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Speaker 1: the fire tornadoes they don't necessarily have to follow that.

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Speaker 1: That um, that process of starting out horizontally and standing

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Speaker 1: up and then moving like a tornado. There's another thing

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Speaker 1: called a hairpin fireworld. Is this the forward burst? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: This is amazing. Basically it's like the fire develops so

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Speaker 1: much I guess heat, it's vortexas do It's vortices do

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Speaker 1: that it shoots forward like a flamethrower. And apparently these

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Speaker 1: things are they get up to like sixties six feet wide,

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Speaker 1: right yeah, Um, just they can shoot three hundred plus

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Speaker 1: feet at a hundred miles an hour, just all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, like the fire just shot a hundred feet

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Speaker 1: forward at a hundred miles an hour, and then in

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Speaker 1: an instant, all of a sudden, your fire is going

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Speaker 1: in a if not a different direction and additional direction.

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Speaker 1: Right because tracking these things, predicting these things, it's we've

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Speaker 1: figured out or Dr Terry Clark has figured out, um

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Speaker 1: that it's not just the atmospheric conditions, it's the fire

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Speaker 1: creating its own stuff, its own wind, yeah, and just

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Speaker 1: moving from both of these living thing yea. And they

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Speaker 1: call that spotting if if they if it tosses embers

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Speaker 1: to another spot, they call that spotting. And if it

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Speaker 1: if it starts a fire obviously right um. And then

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Speaker 1: temperature also is another factor. If it's warm out hot, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, obviously that's an extra sixty hundred degrees that

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Speaker 1: the temper that the sun doesn't have to heat something

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Speaker 1: up to. Yeah you know, yeah, you never that's why

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Speaker 1: they burned mostly or most hot and wild during the

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Speaker 1: day during the afternoon, um, California. Like, I had to

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: so muggy all the time. There's no way you couldn't

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

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Speaker 1: strike a match outside right now. But uh, well, I'm

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Speaker 1: just used to camping with a great, big, awesome camp fire.

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Speaker 1: But once I headed west into like Colorado and New

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

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Speaker 1: in national park you go to a national forest says

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Speaker 1: 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 in

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

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

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Speaker 1: sometimes it was the fire risk was so high you're

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Speaker 1: not 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 is it

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Speaker 1: was not cool. There's this guy on Um, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: didn't take care of breaking Okay, did you ever watch

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Speaker 1: Malcolm in the middle. Oh yeah, um, there was this one.

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Speaker 1: There was this one scene, um where the mom was

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

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

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Speaker 1: telling his kids, and he's like their cautionary tales, and

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Speaker 1: she 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, you know, all of a sudden, his

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Speaker 1: voice is down. Well no, he he cashed out, like

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Speaker 1: right about that time. He was like I'm out. Malcolm himself.

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Speaker 1: He was like, I've I've got fifteen Porsches and I'm

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

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Speaker 1: his big movie career. Yeah, that's right. Sorry Cranston. Though

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Speaker 1: he's uh have a scene breaking bad. But it's supposed

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

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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: as 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 and the heat. Well,

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Speaker 1: for the fires concerned, it's like, give me a steep

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Speaker 1: mountain because the fire would be standing almost upright then,

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Speaker 1: and the smoke and the heat coming off the fire

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Speaker 1: is um really drying out the fuel load ahead. So

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Speaker 1: most of the time they burned upward up the mountain,

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Speaker 1: and then they reach the crest and they're like, I

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Speaker 1: should have thought this through because now I have to

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Speaker 1: go down and I can't ye, which is good for

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Speaker 1: fighting the fire, not good for the fire um they

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

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Speaker 1: really bad. Uh. It can lead to things like erosion

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Speaker 1: and mud slides later on because you mess with the

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Speaker 1: with the ground like that and it's not stable like

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Speaker 1: it once was. Yeah, I mean, like the one of

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Speaker 1: the roles that roots a root system plays is holding

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Speaker 1: the ground in place. And if you burn the tree

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

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Speaker 1: nice heavy rain comes then and that very thing happened

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Speaker 1: Josh and storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, two

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

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Speaker 1: steep slopes. And two months later they got a lot

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

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Speaker 1: and rock onto a stretch of Interstate seventy like engulfing cars,

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

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Speaker 1: fire months months ago. And we've seen one sides before.

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Speaker 1: Remember Guatemala. Oh yeah, remember like down the mountain there

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

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Speaker 1: path came tree standing on this village where they'd never

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Speaker 1: unearthed the people and it was like people's kids were

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Speaker 1: running around. Yeah, it was so sad. Where we were

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

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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

385
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:09,399
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

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

389
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Speaker 1: a book club by mentioning again recently, have you noticed

390
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:26,199
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been writing and saying like,

391
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Speaker 1: thanks man, I'm starting yea, and they're like, what about Yes,

392
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:33,919
Speaker 1: it's another book that's a fake book though, Oh is it?

393
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Speaker 1: It's yeah, that's the one where the guys like the

394
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:40,520
Speaker 1: Chinese made it to South America. Mexico wrote article about it,

395
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Speaker 1: and I pilloried the guy. Okay, yeah, it's very he

396
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: has very shaky, shaky evidence. That's fascinating stuff. But well

397
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Speaker 1: have we not podcasted on that. Let's do it all right?

398
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Speaker 1: I read that today and I was like, why haven't

399
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Speaker 1: we done this yet? Oh, we can totally do it. Okay.

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

401
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Speaker 1: the bitterness to like my mouth like after I wrote

402
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 1: that one, because the guy was getting tons of pressed

403
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 1: at the time. But anyway, anyway, anyone who's read knows

404
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 1: that North America it was basically a managed forest, and

405
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Speaker 1: one of the ways that it was managed prior to

406
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Speaker 1: Columbus was through prescribed burns. Like it there. It is

407
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Speaker 1: very beneficial. It burns away the underbrush so you have

408
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Speaker 1: less potential for accidental fires. Right, Remember we talked about

409
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Speaker 1: recessions are kind of like that um and the it

410
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Speaker 1: gets rid of disease, provides nutrients in the soil um

411
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Speaker 1: awesome show. After you'd like, you know, hit the peace pipe,

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Speaker 1: just kick back and watch a forest fire go. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about putting these things out. Josher's. Uh. They

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Speaker 1: 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. Are alright? Hot

418
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:31,920
Speaker 1: shots They work in twenty person teams and they are

419
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Speaker 1: trained there on the ground and they were trained to

420
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Speaker 1: build mainly to build fire breaks. And that is when

421
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Speaker 1: they strip the land of fuel ahead of the fire,

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

423
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: to stop it. There have you ever seen that? God's

424
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 1: must be crazy too. No. The dude, the main dude,

425
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,880
Speaker 1: I can't remember his name. He um. There there's a

426
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: brush fire coming like a prairie fire, savannah fire coming

427
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 1: at the main characters, and they're about to be engulfed

428
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 1: in it. And the main bushman runs and grabs like

429
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,639
Speaker 1: a piece of grass or whatever and sets fire to

430
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: the grass behind them that they are running into and

431
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 1: burns it and then basically creates a circle. It's a

432
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,680
Speaker 1: backfire firebreak, and they're all standing in the circle where

433
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: there's no more fuel any longer. It's completely and utterly genius.

434
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: Well it is. And it's also you have to be

435
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 1: you have to really know what you're doing. You know,

436
00:25:27,119 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: you have to put it in the exact right spot.

437
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: I know that sometimes they'll do the firebreak and the

438
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: fire will leap over that, and then that's kind of

439
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: make you feel like, yeah, there's nothing we can do

440
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: well in a lot of cases. I mean, it's like

441
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: I remember, was it two years ago, was or maybe

442
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: it was three years ago when they had all those wildfires,

443
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: and uh, I remember thinking like what we can do medically,

444
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: and like, we can, you know, put a man on

445
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: the moon, but we can't stop a fire. And it's

446
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 1: that out of control because it's so huge and overwhelming,

447
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: very deep, thank you, not deep at all. Actually. And

448
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 1: there's there's smoke jumpers, which are hotshots that jump out

449
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: of airplanes, right yeah, and there's only a couple of

450
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: hundred of them in the US, which I can imagine

451
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: that's a really specialized job, and you have to be

452
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: a tough mug to do that. That would be Hawing Long.

453
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: He did in in Firestorm, I think he was. I

454
00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,359
Speaker 1: didn't see it. Not many people saw it, actually, but

455
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 1: I did copy the the description from IMDb. I thought

456
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: it was just about like a firefighter and like forest fires,

457
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: but of course, because it's Hollywood, they added some plot

458
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: to it. Firefighter Jesse Graves has to save ornithologist Jennifer

459
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 1: and other people in a forest fire. Like I thought

460
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: that was it, but no, it was set up by

461
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: the lawyer of a convicted killer, Earl Shay, who escaped

462
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: from prison with several of his inmates, posing his firefighters

463
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: to recover thirty seven million and stashed loot. So they

464
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 1: were acting. They started the fire and purpose it was

465
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,639
Speaker 1: sort of like the guys who posed as UH ambulance

466
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:05,680
Speaker 1: drivers to get the dude out of prison. That sounds awesome, actually,

467
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: I mean the plot description sounds pretty awesome. You can

468
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: tell you hear like Howie Long, it's going to be awful,

469
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: But like I'm sure the writer of that was like, okay, yeah,

470
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: and then he hears it's gonna be Firestorm starring how

471
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: he long, and he's like, I'm sure that the writer

472
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: Alan Smithy was pretty psyched that that is project for

473
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: a little while. So chuck, oh uh, you can fight

474
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 1: a fire using an air corps, right, Oh yeah, that

475
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: dropped fire retardant on the fire. You've seen the news

476
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,720
Speaker 1: footage the red stuff. Yes, Or they can drop tons

477
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: of water and have you ever heard that urban legend?

478
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,880
Speaker 1: M oh yeah, but what is it? So there there

479
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: is a forest fire somewhere we'll say California, and they

480
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: put it out, and like six months later or whatever,

481
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: some hikers walking through this area and looks up and

482
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 1: notices that there's a scuba diver stuck in a tree, right,

483
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: but the rebreather on and the the mask on and

484
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: the flippers and everything, and um, he's dead. And the

485
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 1: hiker can't figure out what's going on, and you know,

486
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 1: leaves the forest and tell somebody about it, and they

487
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: start doing some research and they figure out that he

488
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: was scooped up by one of these planes that goes

489
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: out to the ocean and like steps up a bunch

490
00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: of water and comes and dumps it on the totally

491
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: not true, right wildfire. Now, the fire, that's a good one. Yeah,

492
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: it is a good one. I hate it when you

493
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: burst Urban Legends though, because it bursts so many bubbles

494
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: right now, so it's so beneficial. Like, yes, I know

495
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: it's stings right now, but in about forty five seconds,

496
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: you're going to feel like a smarter person, right, that's true.

497
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: We mentioned the fire retardant that is not just red stuff.

498
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: It is um a chemical retardant containing phosphate fertilizer, and

499
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: it cools down the fire slows it down. It's like, uh,

500
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: it's main ingredient is water though, so it's like puper

501
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: superwater as far as you know. I was thinking about

502
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: when when I was reading about smoke jumpers. Um, the

503
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: the human cannonball thing that DARPA came up with would

504
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: be perfect for that. You could just be like to

505
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: shoot a bunch of smoke jumpers into the like over

506
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:18,719
Speaker 1: the fire into where you want them. You don't need

507
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: the parachutes or something. Yeah, I can't imagine a smoke

508
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: jumper's job like landing in the middle of that stuff. Yeah,

509
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: that's crazy stuff, amazing and um. We also want to

510
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: give a shout out to always Great Movies starring Richard Dreyfuss.

511
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: It was no always Oh, I thought you said, we

512
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: always want to give a shout always remember. Yeah, that

513
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: was a good movie. John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Richard dreyfuss Um,

514
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: and that handsome dude who I don't know. Yeah, that's right,

515
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: the guy that played the handsome guy. And it was

516
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: a remake of I think a guy named Joe or

517
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: something is h And I also I believe Audrey Hepburn's

518
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: final film was it because she was darling in it?

519
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: She was, she was pretty till the very end. Is

520
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 1: that it? That is it? Okay? If you want to

521
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: know more about forest fires, you should go into the

522
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: beloved venerable website that we work for, how stuff works

523
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: dot com and type in wildfires and we have it

524
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: as one word, right yes uh. And if you type

525
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 1: an ends, canna bring up a very cool article with

526
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: some really great photography to um. I think the page

527
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: one or page zero pick is just awesome looking. Um.

528
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: And since I said handy search far, that means it's

529
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. It's not. Oh yeah, that's right.

530
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: I don't have a listener mail for this one. Josh,

531
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: and I was trying to think of what we could

532
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: do instead. Would you come up with. Well, I thought

533
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: about a call to action saying that you know, that

534
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: would be great if you could go to iTunes and

535
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: leave us a rating and a review, because are bad.

536
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: Some people hate it when we do that, you know,

537
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: like we're just begging for it or whatever. It's beats

538
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 1: a pledge drive. Yes, it does, Chuck. Do we ask

539
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: that much from you guys? Really? No? So so so.

540
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: Actually we finally worked that out. Call to action or

541
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: how about some love for Jerry via email too to

542
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,920
Speaker 1: be great? Oh that's nice. Some Jerry questions or both.

543
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: We'll tell you all about Jerry. Yeah, ask us really

544
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: personal questions about our life answer and totally we've just

545
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: been waiting for everyone to ask Yeah. Um, you can

546
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:29,959
Speaker 1: ask those questions all sorts of ways. Um. First, if

547
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: you want to go give us a rating a review

548
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: on iTunes, that's very nice, if you thank you. Um.

549
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 1: But if you want to ask us a question about Jerry,

550
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us. We have our own Twitter

551
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: feed up to fifteen thousand followers. Did you know that? Yes,

552
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast one word um. And then

553
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: of course we have our great Facebook page. Um, that's

554
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know, And you

555
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: can send us a regular old email and you can

556
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: listen to us on WFMU if you're in New York

557
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: or New Jersey. Uh ninety one point one Friday's between

558
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: seven and eight pm. The Stuff you Should Know Radio

559
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 1: Public Radio version or ninety point one in the Hudson

560
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: Valie Hudson Valley. Um and and is that not New York,

561
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: New York's down the Hudson Valley. Where's the Hudson New

562
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: York State? So that's up stick? Is that where Albany

563
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: is to keep hearing like everybody in law in order

564
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 1: to talk about when they mentioned the governor huh um

565
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: or you can send us a regular world email to

566
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for more

567
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:41,479
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

568
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com