Aug 16, 2010: Russia Burns

The news has been full of reports about the massive forest fires sweeping Russia. There have been pictures of the smoke in Moscow, satellite views, even Putin flying a fire plane, but the Livejournal pictures are more up close and personal.

I think this one bodes badly for future of the people involved. :(



link

Oh GAWD! The aliens are coming out of hiding and stealing brains!

On a different note I find it hard to imagine a lettuce field burning. How? Lots of dirt and green wet plants why would it ever burn? Must be really crazy hot.


Reminds me of the Great Fire of 1910.
Wallace Washington.
Over 3,000 individual fires were burning the morning of Aug 20, 1910.

Hurricane force winds appeared and blew many of them into one giant walls of fire miles wide and over a 100ft tall.

"The fire turned trees and men into weird torches that exploded like Roman candles."

Whole towns were incinerated. Trains filled with evacuees made daring escapes across burning trestles to seek refuge in tunnels.

Entire fire squads were wiped out.

The fire was eventually put out by the winter rains and snow.

Immediately after the Great Fire the US Forest service budget was doubled so forest fires could be fought instead of left on their own.

On the up side - your cabbage streudel makes itself!

My co-worker is from Moscow. Because its so far north, the average August temperature is 68. This August the high's have been around 95-100. No one is prepared. All of the stores are sold out of fans, which had been selling for $200+ each. She was able to buy a pair of fans online for her parents, and while they were being delivered the delivery guy was offered over $400 each for the fans.

Electrophile;676786 wrote:

...She was able to buy a pair of fans online for her parents, and while they were being delivered the delivery guy was offered over $400 each for the fans.

Capitalist pigs!

Looks like Zombie-cabbage!! Run! [SIZE="4"]RUN NOW!!!![/SIZE]

Brianna;676785 wrote:

On the up side - your cabbage streudel makes itself!

In Soviet Russia, cabbage streudel makes you!

I think a lot of the photos on the link were from south central L.A.

Where will we get Cabbage Patch Kids now?

These fires can get so big that they create their own weather systems, some with devastating effects:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100816-fires-thunderstorms-thunder-clouds-volcanoes-science-weather-russia/?source=link_fb08162010volcanicthunderstorms

If there's so much CO2 in the air, why doesn't it put the fire out?

Fire sucks in fresh air from near the ground, then the heat blasts unburnt fuels and byproduct gases way up into the sky forming those giant plumes of smoke. The CO2 never gets a chance to displace the oxygen feeding the fire because it is carried up so quickly, and is actually released from the fuel source above where combustion is actually occurring.

So I guess fire really sucks.

I read that during the firebombing of Dresden bricks melted from the heat. That is a hot fire. What Bullitt said about air being sucked into the fire, winds of over 70mph were created by the vacuum created by the firestorms in Dresden.

I better check wikipedia on that.

Russia Burns. Oh, sorry, wrong Burns.

Bullitt;676941 wrote:

Fire sucks in fresh air from near the ground, then the heat blasts unburnt fuels and byproduct gases way up into the sky forming those giant plumes of smoke. The CO2 never gets a chance to displace the oxygen feeding the fire because it is carried up so quickly, and is actually released from the fuel source above where combustion is actually occurring.

I got thinking about CO2 being heavier than air, but I guess you explained that too.

SPUCK;676783 wrote:

Reminds me of the Great Fire of 1910.


.

That must make you the oldest internet user alive then.

spudcon;677121 wrote:

I got thinking about CO2 being heavier than air, but I guess you explained that too.

CO2 (and CO, which is why your household CO detector should be near the floor) is more dense than air, but that density is no match for the buoyant force of the heat from the fire. However that only applies in wildfires. Unventilated structure fires are a whole different ball game.

lookout123;677123 wrote:

That must make you the oldest internet user alive then.

No - newspaper reader. :D

Bullitt;677148 wrote:

CO2 (and CO, which is why your household CO detector should be near the floor) is more dense than air, but that density is no match for the buoyant force of the heat from the fire. However that only applies in wildfires. Unventilated structure fires are a whole different ball game.

Please leave Colorado out of this, they're doing their best.

The rising superheated air will even form a mini-tornado.
[YOUTUBE]ssn2kmNf0ME[/YOUTUBE]

squirell nutkin;676978 wrote:

I read that during the firebombing of Dresden bricks melted from the heat. That is a hot fire. What Bullitt said about air being sucked into the fire, winds of over 70mph were created by the vacuum created by the firestorms in Dresden.

I better check wikipedia on that.

During both the London fire storm (around St. Paul's Cathedral) and various German city fire storms, especially Dresden, survivors recalled seeing unwary pedestrians being pulled into buildings massively burning, by the force of the wind the firestorm had created.

The film and eyewitness accounts of these (from the documentary "World At War"), is compelling.

There is no film of it, but the Japanese faced this, much worse*, in the course of the fire bombing in Tokyo. Dresden X 10, perhaps. Massive fatalities. The gov't of Japan did not decide to surrender, however.

*we had more bombers, more incendiary bombs, and almost complete air superiority. The Japanese barbarity** had enraged the USA, like you wouldn't believe, by that time. Pity for the Japanese civilians at that time, was at an all-time low.

** the sport for Japanese officers during the Bataan March, was to see if they could decapitate with one stroke of their uniform sword, a POW, as they marched next to the officer's vehicle.