Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I love all things tech and
Speaker 1: it is time for another tech Stuff classic. We're not
Speaker 1: doing how air horns Work. I tried to convince try
Speaker 1: to let me do that one, but she said it
Speaker 1: was far too loud and distracting. Instead, we are taking
Speaker 1: a look at a life saving suite of technologies, the
Speaker 1: technology of firefighting. This episode originally published on July two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven. I hope you guys enjoy Chris polettin myself
Speaker 1: going through the entirety of all tech associated with firefighting.
Speaker 1: As of enjoy, we wanted to talk about firefighting technology.
Speaker 1: We actually had a request come over Facebook for this
Speaker 1: and we wanted to. Uh. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: good request, you know, it's an interesting concept. We also,
Speaker 1: I think I got an email about it as well.
Speaker 1: So we've had some some people enquire about the technology
Speaker 1: used in firefighting and there's a wide range of tech
Speaker 1: that we can talk about. Some of it is stuff
Speaker 1: that is based off of technology that's been around for
Speaker 1: more than a century and some of it is really
Speaker 1: like space age type stuff. So, um, I thought I
Speaker 1: thought i'd start with one of the most um iconic
Speaker 1: images when you think about firefighting, which of course, is
Speaker 1: the fire engine or fire truck. So, uh, I actually
Speaker 1: live not too far from a fire station, and by
Speaker 1: not too far, I mean adjacent, and uh so I
Speaker 1: get to see fire trucks a lot. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: they're pretty cool things. And of course, you know, the
Speaker 1: main uh, I think the main feature on a fire
Speaker 1: truck has to be the water tank that that it holds,
Speaker 1: you know, and and the water tanks. Depending on the
Speaker 1: size of the truck, the water tank can be a
Speaker 1: different size as well. Like you know, it's not unusual
Speaker 1: to find a fire truck that can hold a thousand
Speaker 1: gallons of water on its own. And of course that's
Speaker 1: important because there's no guarantee that wherever the fire is
Speaker 1: is going to be close to either a pool of
Speaker 1: water or a fire hydrant. Um So a fire truck
Speaker 1: has to be able to carry its own portable water supply.
Speaker 1: But having water on a truck is not enough. You
Speaker 1: have to have a way of getting that water out right,
Speaker 1: So you would need some kind of pump. Yes, and
Speaker 1: UH and fire engines have pumps. They have an impeller
Speaker 1: water pumps, and an impeller water pump is a diesel
Speaker 1: powered pump. So it's got its own independent diesel engine
Speaker 1: and it has a rotor like device that's got some
Speaker 1: curved blades on it that spin in the water tank. Now,
Speaker 1: this actually slings the water around starts to move it
Speaker 1: in a circular fashion. It builds water pressure, and you
Speaker 1: relieve that water pressure by allowing the water to escape
Speaker 1: through water lines also known as hoses. So they have
Speaker 1: to go through a valve and then it goes through
Speaker 1: the hose and at the whatever is burning thing, whatever
Speaker 1: is burning thing, Yeah, that's a technical term in the
Speaker 1: fire fighting trade. So the whatever is burning thing gets
Speaker 1: deluged with water. And there's actually some interesting controls on this.
Speaker 1: There's a series of controls. There's a pump panel that
Speaker 1: allows you to either manually control the pumps or some
Speaker 1: of them are automated. They have like a Mastermind control
Speaker 1: system that actually does this automatically. But a typical pump
Speaker 1: panel will have levers on it that allow you to
Speaker 1: direct where the water is going to go through like
Speaker 1: which lines it's gonna go through, and of course that's
Speaker 1: all going to depend upon which lines have been connected
Speaker 1: to the truck. And there are lots of different kinds
Speaker 1: of water lines also. And again when I say water
Speaker 1: lines there, those are essentially the fire hose is right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: These are a lot different from your garden variety hoses, Yes,
Speaker 1: because they can handle a whole lot more pressure and
Speaker 1: deliver a whole lot more water. As Jonathan was saying
Speaker 1: just a moment ago, you can't be certain that you're
Speaker 1: going to be right next to a fire hydrant where
Speaker 1: the fire is and the fire truck is going to
Speaker 1: park on the street. Now, if the building, let's say
Speaker 1: it's the building is burning and it's away from the street,
Speaker 1: you've got to have enough water pressure to get to
Speaker 1: the fire itself. So the hoses are long, they're there, Uh,
Speaker 1: they've got some diameter on them, so you can really
Speaker 1: carry the a good amount of water and they've got
Speaker 1: to be able to withstand a lot of pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're also they tend to be treated for a
Speaker 1: mildew resistance as well, because one of the big problems
Speaker 1: with fire hoses before the mildew resistant um film was
Speaker 1: developed was that you had to dry them out after
Speaker 1: you use them, because otherwise you would have mildew develop.
Speaker 1: It would start to rot the hoses, and then the
Speaker 1: hoses would not be stable. You could have a hose
Speaker 1: rupture while you're trying to fight a fire because it's
Speaker 1: been weakened by mildew. So uh, yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of elements that go into creating these these hoses, and
Speaker 1: I've got a few different types I can talk about. Um,
Speaker 1: there's usually there's a booster line, which is only about
Speaker 1: an inch diameter, and it's usually used for small fires
Speaker 1: like uh, a minor fire inside a building or something
Speaker 1: like that, or a minor brush fire even. Um, then
Speaker 1: you've got the cross lay hoses. These are the main hoses.
Speaker 1: These are like the workhorses of a fire engine. They're
Speaker 1: located below the pump panel and they can pump up
Speaker 1: to gallons of water per minute. Uh. They tend to
Speaker 1: be about two feet long and they've got a diameter
Speaker 1: of an inch and a half. So then you've got
Speaker 1: the preconnect lines. So, like I said, you know, you've
Speaker 1: got all these valves that are attached to the fire
Speaker 1: engine and they're on all the different sides of the
Speaker 1: fire engine, because you never know where you're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to orient the engine in station to the fire. Normally,
Speaker 1: there is UH there are at least three lines that
Speaker 1: are pre connected when an engine rolls out of the station,
Speaker 1: so that way the fire fighters have a chance to
Speaker 1: immediately jump out of the truck and start fighting the
Speaker 1: fire without having to fuss with unloading hose, connecting it
Speaker 1: to the right valve, and then engaging the valve and
Speaker 1: fighting the fire that way. So preconnect lines tend to
Speaker 1: be between an inch and a half to two inches
Speaker 1: in diameter, and they tend to be able to pump
Speaker 1: out around two fifty gallons of water per minute. UH.
Speaker 1: You've got hoses that are designed specifically to hook up
Speaker 1: to hydrants fire hydrants. Those are five inches in diameter,
Speaker 1: and a fire engine may carry up to a thousand
Speaker 1: feet of this hose, but it's in one foot segments.
Speaker 1: But there are also other shorter segments called curb jumper hoses.
Speaker 1: So let's say that the building that you need to
Speaker 1: get about a hundred and fifty feet of hose UH
Speaker 1: to get to the fire at whatever location you're at,
Speaker 1: and you're hooking it up to a hydrant. You might
Speaker 1: not want to grab two lengths of the hydrant hose
Speaker 1: that's two feet and you know you don't only need
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty um that that means you're gonna
Speaker 1: have an extra fifty feet of hose that you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to maneuver around. Well, these curb jumper hose segments
Speaker 1: are typically in links between twenty ft lengths and fifty
Speaker 1: foot lengths, so that way it's easier just to grab
Speaker 1: a smaller section so that you have enough length of
Speaker 1: hose to get to where you're going without having excess.
Speaker 1: Then you've got your hose pack, which is a lighter hose,
Speaker 1: usually a smaller diameter, and this is what is used
Speaker 1: by firefighters if they have to go into a building
Speaker 1: and climb up levels. That has to be more portable.
Speaker 1: You've got the ladder line. You know, most of these
Speaker 1: fire engines have a really long ladder that's on the
Speaker 1: back of them. Well, there's a there's a line that
Speaker 1: is part of that ladder. It's actually it's it's uh
Speaker 1: a direct connection to the ladder. It's actually built in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's built in, and there is a nozzle at the
Speaker 1: top of the ladder that can shoot out well, it's
Speaker 1: it's usually around three hundred gallons per minute, so it's
Speaker 1: a pretty powerful hose. And then you've got your deluge
Speaker 1: gun or deck gun. That's what's mounted on the top
Speaker 1: of the pump panel. That's the one that you know
Speaker 1: that if you ever look at the fire engine, you
Speaker 1: see something that looks like a turret that's on the
Speaker 1: fire engine. That's the thing I'm talking about. All right,
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about hoses that can shoot out
Speaker 1: between gallons and three gallons of water. The day lug
Speaker 1: gun is no joke. We're talking a thousand gallons a minute. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you may say, well, if you've got a thousand
Speaker 1: gallons at the tank, does that mean that after a
Speaker 1: minute you've completely exhausted your water supply? And the answers, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you're if you were just using the water
Speaker 1: in the tank. But you can also hook up a
Speaker 1: a line to a a pool or acre pond and
Speaker 1: use that water to pump into the the various lines
Speaker 1: that you're using now. For that, they use a uh,
Speaker 1: a strainer. It's a it's called a barrel strainer and
Speaker 1: that's what is used to filter out debris in ponds
Speaker 1: and pools and that kind of thing in order to
Speaker 1: be able to use that water to fight fires. Because
Speaker 1: of course, if you get debris caught in the line,
Speaker 1: then you've fouled the line. You are you know, in
Speaker 1: danger of losing the fight against the fire. But plus
Speaker 1: I imagine it would do quite a bit of costly
Speaker 1: damage to the equipment as well. Sure, yes, all of
Speaker 1: that is is uh, you know, an important thing to
Speaker 1: remember when you are trying to to fight fires. And
Speaker 1: then there's also they tend to trucks tend to also
Speaker 1: carry foam, and there's different kinds of foam UH that
Speaker 1: are that's used for different types of fires. Usually a
Speaker 1: fire engine may only carry one type of film, especially
Speaker 1: if it's if it's in an area where UH fires
Speaker 1: are typically one type versus another. For example, a Class
Speaker 1: A foam is a kind of foam that's used to
Speaker 1: soak down an area after you've put out a fire
Speaker 1: to prevent reignition. It's kind of a flame retardant. And
Speaker 1: then you've got like Class B foam that's the stuff
Speaker 1: that you use to fight flammable liquid fires. So like
Speaker 1: a car fire, you might want to use that because
Speaker 1: of the gasoline problem. So uh. And then the other
Speaker 1: part about fire engines, they are like mobile tool kits.
Speaker 1: So that's where all the fire fighting tools are are
Speaker 1: mounted in that and you may have some pretty low
Speaker 1: tech stuff in there. I mean things like hooks and
Speaker 1: pikes that are used to tear down walls so that
Speaker 1: you can get at the places where the fire is
Speaker 1: to put the fire out. There's not a lot of
Speaker 1: tech there. But then you may have something like a chainsaw,
Speaker 1: you know chainsaws have that there's this there's some tech
Speaker 1: there that's just pretty simple tech. It's usually you know,
Speaker 1: a diesel engine that turns turns the chaine that you
Speaker 1: can cut through stuff. But then there's also the uh
Speaker 1: a pretty famous tool I would say that you typically
Speaker 1: will find on a fire engine. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: I know where you're going with this since you just
Speaker 1: mentioned it a moment ago, but I think, uh, it's
Speaker 1: important to remember before while you're trying to guess what
Speaker 1: this famous tool is that firefighters, um these days often
Speaker 1: do a lot more than fighting fires. They're also responsible for,
Speaker 1: uh doing some paramedic work. Um, you know, their first responders.
Speaker 1: So if someone is injured, they often call the the
Speaker 1: firefighters out um on the possibility that in addition to
Speaker 1: medical care, there might be um a fire related to it,
Speaker 1: and they might need to do both things. Like for example,
Speaker 1: as Jonathan was just pointing out, if you had a
Speaker 1: car wreck and uh, there's a possibility that gasoline might
Speaker 1: spill and catch fire. So you have someone trapped in
Speaker 1: a car, Um, there's a possibility that there might be
Speaker 1: a fire. So who better to send than of fire
Speaker 1: writers who are trained in medical care. But the trick
Speaker 1: is getting them out of the car before something bad happened. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's where that's where this uh, this tool comes in.
Speaker 1: It's called the Jaws of Life. And really the Jaws
Speaker 1: of Life is actually a series of tools, is not
Speaker 1: a single tool. Um. There's a company that makes uh
Speaker 1: these tools, and the company is known as the Jaws
Speaker 1: of Life. Company actually has a full name. But it
Speaker 1: escapes my mind out tope of my head. But let's say,
Speaker 1: not that kind. You still haven't seen that movie, have you?
Speaker 1: I have not, we had someone asked us earlier. Um,
Speaker 1: no he has not seen Jaws. So Jaws of life,
Speaker 1: Jaws of Life. It's a hydraulic lee powered tool and
Speaker 1: by that we mean it uses a fluid to create
Speaker 1: uh pressure and move heavy duty tool elements. And uh,
Speaker 1: let's I guess a little digression on hydraulic fluid would
Speaker 1: be a good idea here. So, hydraulic fluid is a
Speaker 1: fluid that is typically it's it's not compressible. It's incompressible,
Speaker 1: and by that, I mean you cannot squish it right right,
Speaker 1: Like most things that we think about, there's a little
Speaker 1: squish factor. But hydraulic fluid is supposed to be incompressible
Speaker 1: and that means that the fluids that maximum density, you
Speaker 1: cannot cram them the the molecules of that fluid any
Speaker 1: tighter than it already is. So if the foot pressure
Speaker 1: on it, it's going to push. Yeah. Like if you
Speaker 1: have a a cylinder filled with hydraulic fluid and uh,
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to push a press, a piston into
Speaker 1: the cylinder. At the point where everything is connected. You
Speaker 1: have a you know, the solid cylinder at one end,
Speaker 1: and then there the piston starts to push on it.
Speaker 1: There's a point at which the piston is not going
Speaker 1: to be able to push anymore because it is it
Speaker 1: is compressed as far as it can go and it
Speaker 1: will not compress any further. And you can use that
Speaker 1: to do work. Ye, and there are plenty of tools
Speaker 1: that do use this and the jaws of life to
Speaker 1: use a phosphate esther fluid. A lot of hydraulic fluid
Speaker 1: systems will use an oil based fluid. As you can imagine,
Speaker 1: oil based fluids are not necessarily the best thing to
Speaker 1: have in firefighting equipment. Yeah, So phosphate esther is non
Speaker 1: flammable and non conductive. So the these hydraulic tools, the
Speaker 1: jaws of life, there are actually, like I said, a
Speaker 1: line of them, and the ones that are typically used
Speaker 1: in firefighting are cutters, which do what they sound like
Speaker 1: they do. They are designed to cut through stuff, so,
Speaker 1: for example, the body of a car, because the hydraulic
Speaker 1: pressure is such that it will cause the the pinch,
Speaker 1: the the cutting edges of this device to close. It's
Speaker 1: such a force that metal just crumbles. And then you've
Speaker 1: got spreaders. Spreaders are kind of like, you know, imagine
Speaker 1: a pair of pliers and you open them. That's kind
Speaker 1: of what spreaders are are doing. They fires in reverse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you shove shove it into a gap, and then you
Speaker 1: start the hydraulic motor and or actually start the diesel motor,
Speaker 1: and that starts the hydraulic fluid. Uh. It pushes hydrug
Speaker 1: fluid through and makes it do work, and that's what
Speaker 1: causes the pincers to open and then you pop open
Speaker 1: whatever it is you were trying to open, or it
Speaker 1: tears apart one one or the other. And then hydraulic rams.
Speaker 1: So those are the three that are used the most
Speaker 1: frequently in firefighting UH scenarios. So uh yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of We actually have an article on how the jaws
Speaker 1: of Life work and it goes into detail on each
Speaker 1: of those tools. So if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about it, I do recommend that it's a very useful resource.
Speaker 1: And then also I guess I should mention what we're
Speaker 1: talking about hydraulics. The ladder on the fire trucks, those
Speaker 1: are operated through hydraulics as well. There's a piston that
Speaker 1: is uh has got especially two different hoses connected to it,
Speaker 1: and the hydraulic fluid will either cause the letter to
Speaker 1: extend upward or to come back down. So those are
Speaker 1: that's your basic fire engine from from front to back.
Speaker 1: I mean there's There's a lot more we can talk about,
Speaker 1: but there's so much more firefighting technology. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to just have this all be about fire engines. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys are enjoying this classic episode of tech
Speaker 1: stuff so far. We're going to take a quick break
Speaker 1: and thank our sponsor. So what do you want to
Speaker 1: talk about next? Well, most of what I got is
Speaker 1: sort of high tech, cutting edge type stuff. UM. One
Speaker 1: thing that that we should talk about, probably UM to
Speaker 1: some extent, or maybe we could cover it later if
Speaker 1: you want to go with all the high tech stuff
Speaker 1: now is the stuff that the firefight is actually wear
Speaker 1: on their person themselves. Sure, yeah, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: Because we just thought about fire engines, we should talk
Speaker 1: about the fire gear that the the firefighters are wearing. UM.
Speaker 1: This is they wear a lot, Yes, they do. UM.
Speaker 1: Of course they have to try to stay protected from um,
Speaker 1: the heat that's you know, it depends on what's burning,
Speaker 1: of course. Uh. Some some different types of materials will
Speaker 1: burn hotter than other materials. UM. And you certainly don't
Speaker 1: want to have a firefighter go inside to rescue a
Speaker 1: person or to get at the source of a fire
Speaker 1: and have them uh pass out. From the heat or
Speaker 1: to to be overcome by heat and smoke inhalation. UM.
Speaker 1: So you have to you know, protect them externally and
Speaker 1: and make sure that they uh they can breathe, make
Speaker 1: sure that they could see and and you know, keep
Speaker 1: them as cool as possible. UM. One one jacket that
Speaker 1: I read about that was really cool. It's actually called
Speaker 1: turnout gear UM, which is a basically the the heavy
Speaker 1: duty jacket that you might see them where. It's actually
Speaker 1: from a company called Viking UM. But it's got thermal
Speaker 1: sensors built into the jacket itself. Now not now that
Speaker 1: this is sort of again sort of cutting edge, but this, uh,
Speaker 1: this different thing has sensors on the outside which change
Speaker 1: depending on There's an LED display UM on the jacket,
Speaker 1: and it will tell you at you know, at what
Speaker 1: point it is going to be a serious issue that
Speaker 1: he is going to be a serious he is going
Speaker 1: to be too hot for the suit's integrity. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and the firefighter will be a danger. Yeah. Well. The
Speaker 1: thing is that it monitors what's going on outside and inside.
Speaker 1: So by looking at the firefighter, you know, another firefighter
Speaker 1: could say, look, you know, he's in danger right now,
Speaker 1: being where he is and needs to get out of
Speaker 1: there because he may not be able to tell uh
Speaker 1: what's going on. He may be so focused on fighting
Speaker 1: the fire he may be ignoring a potentially dangerous situation
Speaker 1: for himself in the heat of the moment. Yes, Apparently,
Speaker 1: when the outer temperature of where the fire is gets
Speaker 1: to about four two degrees fahrenheit um, the display, the
Speaker 1: LED display starts to flash, and it's six d sixty
Speaker 1: two degrees fahrenheit um, it will start flashing very fast.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine being in anything that hot. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because well, first of all, I got to know, you know,
Speaker 1: paper burns at farehne. Yes, but I was gonna I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, you know, it's kind of interesting because
Speaker 1: if you look at the history of the heat resistant
Speaker 1: materials that firefighters have worn, the go to material for
Speaker 1: quite some time was called nomex, Yeah, which is a
Speaker 1: fire resistant material. It's similar to nylon. It's kind of
Speaker 1: the same sort of a feel of nylon, but it
Speaker 1: can withstand really intense heat as a type of meta
Speaker 1: aramid fiber, which really you just need to know that's
Speaker 1: a heat resistance anthetic fiber that was developed in the
Speaker 1: lab and um it's actually kind of, uh, sort of
Speaker 1: a distant relative to kevlar um, which is a much
Speaker 1: more resilient, not necessarily heat resistant, but physically resilient material.
Speaker 1: So no mix was the standard for a really long time.
Speaker 1: Back in the Houston Fire Department partnered with NASA to
Speaker 1: develop a Originally it was just to develop a new
Speaker 1: helmet for firefighters, but then eventually, through this partnership, NASA
Speaker 1: suggested that perhaps they could completely redesign the fire fighter suit,
Speaker 1: and they started to create suits that would circulate liquids
Speaker 1: within the suits lining in order to remove heat so
Speaker 1: that it would protect the firefighter longer in intense heat conditions.
Speaker 1: Because before that point, the Houston firefighters were really only
Speaker 1: rated to go into areas that were three degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: or cooler. Afterward, they could go into areas that were
Speaker 1: five hundred degrees fahrenheight or cooler. And now you're talking
Speaker 1: about a system where you know, it warns you at
Speaker 1: four two, which is right around that you know, that
Speaker 1: five hundred degree range that was just talking about, but
Speaker 1: it goes all the way up to six, suggesting that
Speaker 1: this material is even more resilient than the stuff that
Speaker 1: was made back in NASA. One of the other cool
Speaker 1: things that they added in that that same project where
Speaker 1: they were redesigning the helmet, they created an improved two
Speaker 1: way radio link ups in the helmets themselves, and they
Speaker 1: also created a infrared camera system so that you can
Speaker 1: so that the firefighter could switch to a thermal view
Speaker 1: and see hot spots in the house and also help
Speaker 1: firefighters identify if any victims were UH in the area,
Speaker 1: so that they you know, they could see the heat
Speaker 1: from a person, then they would know that they needed
Speaker 1: to UH to. You know, you might not be able
Speaker 1: to see because the smoke might be so thick. And actually,
Speaker 1: infrared cameras play a really big role in firefighting technology
Speaker 1: across the board, not just in personal firefighter gear, but
Speaker 1: for example, a helicopter flying over a wildfire might be equipped.
Speaker 1: In fact, most of them are equipped with infrared cameras
Speaker 1: and infrared lenses so that they can so the pilot
Speaker 1: or the watch's not really the pilot, but a firefighter
Speaker 1: aboard the helicopter can look through and see the hot
Speaker 1: spots and see the flames even if the smoke is
Speaker 1: so thick that you couldn't see anything, you know, just
Speaker 1: through a regular view to the ground. I'm sorry that
Speaker 1: was a big digression, but you were going back to
Speaker 1: the cutting edge gear. Yeah. Actually, uh we we can
Speaker 1: keep going with that because I was reading an article
Speaker 1: on Popular Mechanics about some of the different cutting edge
Speaker 1: firefighting tools UM some firefighters for for things like, uh,
Speaker 1: scenarios like that, you're talking about a fire in the
Speaker 1: in the wilderness, UM are using unmanned aircraft. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a monitor areas and using UM infrared technology to identify
Speaker 1: places where uh, you know, you can really concentrate on
Speaker 1: on fighting the fire. The thing is, UM, we have
Speaker 1: really talked about yet. It's on our list of things
Speaker 1: to do. But these unmanned aerial vehicles can stay in
Speaker 1: the air far longer than UH piloted human piloted aircraft.
Speaker 1: They can stay in the air for well. The ones
Speaker 1: that they use in them the military can use stay
Speaker 1: in the air for almost a day I think maybe
Speaker 1: even longer. And they can fly through thick smoke that
Speaker 1: a pilot, depending on the type of aircraft, may not
Speaker 1: be able to fly through because you know, smaller aircraft,
Speaker 1: which is often what's being used to fight fires, uses
Speaker 1: a lot of line of sight UH navigational UH techniques
Speaker 1: rather than flying by instruments. So if you're gonna fly
Speaker 1: into an area that's that's got to really low visibility,
Speaker 1: that's very dangerous for the pilot. So it's much more
Speaker 1: safe to use a pilotless drone. I mean you've got
Speaker 1: the person who's controlling it is controlling it from a
Speaker 1: a workstation as opposed to in a cockpit. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you come across the the I'm probably gonna butcher
Speaker 1: this name because my Native American languages are non existent
Speaker 1: uh Icona, Yes, I did? I k h A in A. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a predator be drone that NASA has
Speaker 1: UM that is specifically designed to to fly through areas
Speaker 1: that are either threatened by wildfires, are actually currently in
Speaker 1: experiencing wildfire, And it's got a lot of sensors on
Speaker 1: it that allow it to UH to detect exactly the
Speaker 1: intensity and location of a fire to help firefighting strategies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't typically think of NASA as being a firefighting agency,
Speaker 1: but they have been partnering with in the United States
Speaker 1: Forest Service in developing this technology and working on ways
Speaker 1: to keep forest fires from getting out of control UM.
Speaker 1: There's also moderate resolution imaging spector radiometer or modus UM,
Speaker 1: and basically that's a there are two satellites in orbit
Speaker 1: around the Earth UM. They're using instrumentation that can detect
Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation UM. And so basically, over the course of
Speaker 1: a day or two, UH motus is keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on on the Earth to look for radiation that would
Speaker 1: indicate where where there's smoke and there's fire UM. And
Speaker 1: you can look at things like uh you can sort
Speaker 1: of overlay this with areas of population density, areas of vegetation,
Speaker 1: things that might UM indicate that there is a serious
Speaker 1: imminent danger of say a fire spreading if it's going
Speaker 1: to get to a grassland or you know, coming close
Speaker 1: enough to an area of population density where you need
Speaker 1: to start evacuating people to keep them out of the way. UM.
Speaker 1: You know it's using satellite imaging is a very sophisticated
Speaker 1: way of fighting fires because you can get uh uh
Speaker 1: feel pardon the well worn expression, and a big picture
Speaker 1: of view of what's really going on. And in a
Speaker 1: fire of a size like that, of course, that's a
Speaker 1: much bigger fire than the ones we were starting out
Speaker 1: the podcast talking about Yeah. Yeah, I mean NASA has
Speaker 1: done a lot of work with satellites and fire detection.
Speaker 1: I mean back at two thousand three, that's when they
Speaker 1: started to to develop a software that would scan for
Speaker 1: for fires and then uh, if a fire was detected,
Speaker 1: then NASA could direct a more powerful satellite to look
Speaker 1: at that area specifically. There's also the lands at seven satellite,
Speaker 1: which is designed to detect moisture levels and and forceded
Speaker 1: areas to determine likely spots where wildfires could form because
Speaker 1: of course, the wildfire is more likely to form in
Speaker 1: a very dry area. Those conditions are our prime for
Speaker 1: a wildfire because you've got a lot of dry fuel
Speaker 1: and then if there's any wind then that's going to
Speaker 1: spread that fire around very quickly in that area. So
Speaker 1: that's that's or the purpose of lance at seven. It's
Speaker 1: just a kind of identify potential spots where a wildfire
Speaker 1: could develop with the right conditions. I mean, obviously you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to have something that's gonna spark the fire. Guys,
Speaker 1: I know this is a super hot topic right now.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Also write about in um in popular mechanics about some
Speaker 1: software developed by the Canadian inter Agency Forest Fire Center
Speaker 1: UM called Prometheus. Yeah, the Bringer of Fire, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: In this case, it's actually designed to identify the likelihood
Speaker 1: of fire before it actually starts to burn. Very very
Speaker 1: cool idea basically using it's sort of like if you
Speaker 1: think about it's sort of like a meteorological models. They're
Speaker 1: taking environmental factors into account, um ecological factors and and
Speaker 1: looking at those to get an idea of the likelihood
Speaker 1: of a forest fire starting and spreading, so they can
Speaker 1: kind of keep an eye on on that before it
Speaker 1: even really at conflagration starts. Uh. Speaking of meteorological equipment,
Speaker 1: actually a lot of well fire stations tend to have
Speaker 1: a lot of meteorological equipment actually on the station, mounted
Speaker 1: on the station because you know, firefighters need to know
Speaker 1: this information. If if humidity is high, then they know
Speaker 1: that the fire is going to spread more slowly than
Speaker 1: if it were a dry day. Um. They need to
Speaker 1: know what the wind speed and direction is because that's
Speaker 1: going to affect how they attack a fire. It also
Speaker 1: will affect how a fire might spread. So a lot
Speaker 1: of weather equipment is uh, you know you'll find a
Speaker 1: lot of weather equipment attached to your typical fire station,
Speaker 1: and you know that way they have the most up
Speaker 1: to date information available before they go out to uh
Speaker 1: to fight a fire. Um, you want to hear about
Speaker 1: a couple other cutting edge tools. I ran into. The
Speaker 1: two I've got that I wanted to talk about are
Speaker 1: kind of future potential applications. Yes, did you run across
Speaker 1: the controlled impact rescue impact rescue tool? Uh? This is
Speaker 1: something if you've heard of the company at raytheon, you
Speaker 1: probably associate them with defense technology and microwave offense. UM,
Speaker 1: but among other things, many many other things. Uh, but
Speaker 1: the this is sort of high end weapons grade firefighting technology. UM.
Speaker 1: If you're looking at a concrete wall and you need
Speaker 1: to get inside because there's a fire on the other side,
Speaker 1: and you've you've absolutely got to do this getting through,
Speaker 1: that's going to take you a long time using conventional tools. So, UM,
Speaker 1: this is a prototypical tool, or at least it was
Speaker 1: in at the time. This the article I'm used as
Speaker 1: as sources written. Um, it uses blank ammunition cartridges and
Speaker 1: fires those into the wall to make the wall crumble
Speaker 1: just from the shock waves of firing the blanks. Into
Speaker 1: the wall. UM. The equipment waste about a hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: which means that you've got to have to firefighters carrying
Speaker 1: the equipment up there. But it doesn't require any electricity.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's essentially a gun, um. But you
Speaker 1: can use the device to basically pound your way through
Speaker 1: a thick concrete wall a lot faster than you could
Speaker 1: if you were trying to use a jackhammer or electric saw.
Speaker 1: I can easily see a fictionalized version of that weapon
Speaker 1: being used in video games from here on out. UM.
Speaker 1: And then, uh, did you read anything about using electricity
Speaker 1: to fight fires? Yes? Yes, Uh, that is one of
Speaker 1: the ones that I wanted to talk about. Over in
Speaker 1: Harvard University, some researchers discovered something interesting. They found that
Speaker 1: you know, it's been known that that flames will react
Speaker 1: to an electric field for quite some time. But what
Speaker 1: the the researchers at Harvard University found was that by
Speaker 1: using a variable electric field, which means they were using
Speaker 1: alternating current uh to go to travel across a wire, UM,
Speaker 1: they would create this variable electric field, they would direct
Speaker 1: it toward a flame, and they discovered that it would
Speaker 1: snuff a flame out and the the What was at
Speaker 1: work here was that the the variable electric field was
Speaker 1: actually exerting force un charged particles within the flame itself,
Speaker 1: probably probably carbon particles from what I read. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it and it's pushing those particles away from the fuel source.
Speaker 1: So it's literally pushing the flame off the fuel, so
Speaker 1: it snuffs it out, you know, in the fuel. The
Speaker 1: rest of the fuel remains unburned. But this is, um,
Speaker 1: this is just a small kind of laboratory setting, uh
Speaker 1: that you know, it's not a it's not a like
Speaker 1: a field test. And moreover, this sort of application is
Speaker 1: really going to be useful for small, confined in spaces.
Speaker 1: So any place where a fire might break out in
Speaker 1: a tiny area like let's say it's a compartment in
Speaker 1: a ship like a navy vessel. It's down below decks
Speaker 1: and you have a fire breakout, well, this could be
Speaker 1: a good way to contain that fire, to snuff out
Speaker 1: that fire quickly. Um. And you you know that you've
Speaker 1: got to again a pretty confined space in that when
Speaker 1: you're working with that, if you're talking about something like
Speaker 1: a house fire or a wildfire, this approach is not
Speaker 1: necessarily going to be very effective. So it's not like,
Speaker 1: we can just make a massive electric wand pointed at
Speaker 1: California and say you're done, no more fires for you.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen that way. Plus a lot of
Speaker 1: people are gonna be mad that their tiki torches just
Speaker 1: went out. Nice, thank you. But yeah, you could use
Speaker 1: it to uh um to escape a fire if you
Speaker 1: were in a situation that that's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can make a lane um. Yeah. The article i
Speaker 1: read on it basically said if you were a firefire
Speaker 1: inside of building, and there were a wall of fire
Speaker 1: in front of you, you could you know, create an
Speaker 1: escape route for yourself by using this on a on
Speaker 1: a small area enough to to get through and to
Speaker 1: the other side. Sercially, yeah, you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: necessarily put out the fire, but you could at least
Speaker 1: create an avenue to get out of that situation. Or
Speaker 1: it could be used as a sort of augment a
Speaker 1: sprinkler system um mounted on the ceiling, so that you could,
Speaker 1: you know, use that on a small area within a building,
Speaker 1: which would be kind of interesting. I don't know. It
Speaker 1: would sort of depend on the type of equipment the
Speaker 1: that you were working with, and if you had something
Speaker 1: like electronic equipment. Yeah, and we go that you're generating
Speaker 1: electronic electric field. You're not shooting lightning out the end
Speaker 1: of something. So that's something to remember. It's not like
Speaker 1: you're blasting stuff of lightning and then the fire goes out.
Speaker 1: That's that's that'd be cool, but it's not what's happening.
Speaker 1: Did you read about using acoustic waves to put out flames? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't. All right, So this is another one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's an idea that could have potential
Speaker 1: but uh, but it's going to take some more tests
Speaker 1: and some more uh experimentation to really find out if
Speaker 1: it's if it's a worthwhile pursuit. The idea is that
Speaker 1: you use acoustic waves, so sound to snuff out flames.
Speaker 1: And there were some early experiments done mostly by students,
Speaker 1: really like science students in college level and even lower
Speaker 1: where they would use a really sort of a low
Speaker 1: frequency sound like we're talking about in the forty hurts
Speaker 1: frequency range and boost it up really powerfully and you
Speaker 1: and when brought close to a flame, the flame would
Speaker 1: go out. And the idea is that we might be
Speaker 1: able to use this kind of technology in areas where
Speaker 1: there's UH zero gravity, for example, a space station. So
Speaker 1: if a fire broke out in a space station that
Speaker 1: would be at astrophic. It's also really unusual because you know,
Speaker 1: flames behave in our in a really odd way in
Speaker 1: outer space, and it's because of the lack of gravity.
Speaker 1: So instead of a you know, a tear dropped shaped
Speaker 1: flame that you might see one on a candle here
Speaker 1: on Earth, in space, it's round because there's no up
Speaker 1: and there's no down. There's no you know, the heat
Speaker 1: doesn't go up. The heat just stays where it is
Speaker 1: and it gets hotter and hotter and hotter, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't But yeah, heat doesn't travel, it doesn't go outward.
Speaker 1: There's no it's which is kind of hard to get
Speaker 1: your head around. But uh, it's also in the outer space.
Speaker 1: In in a place like the space station, using water
Speaker 1: is not terribly effective either. Um, it doesn't behave the
Speaker 1: same way in a zero G environment. Using foam is
Speaker 1: really messy and dangerous potentially dangerous as well. So that's
Speaker 1: why they're looking at various alternatives to using a physical substance. Um,
Speaker 1: what really the basis of of fighting fire is up
Speaker 1: to this point has been chemical. You're you're you're aiming
Speaker 1: at the fuel and you're trying to put out the
Speaker 1: flame that way. Um, this is more of a physical
Speaker 1: way of fighting fire. You're physically finding a way to
Speaker 1: remove the flame from the fuel and thus snuff it out,
Speaker 1: And both the electric field and the acoustic wave methods
Speaker 1: fall into that category. Well, that wraps up another classic
Speaker 1: episode of tech Stuff. I hope you guys enjoyed listening
Speaker 1: to that one. If you have any suggestions for future
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