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(Metacafe)   From living room to inferno in under two minutes. With video terrifyingness   (metacafe.com) divider line
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    More: Scary  
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5742 clicks; posted to Video » on 24 Feb 2008 at 8:20 PM (15 years ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



36 Comments     (+0 »)
 
ekdikeo4
2008-02-24 8:27:18 PM  
That is horribly obviously time lapsed.
 
megareactor
2008-02-24 8:38:25 PM  
would it have been so hard to actually give us the entire two minutes of burninating?
 
Hooked_on_Fark
2008-02-24 8:46:20 PM  
ekdikeo4: That is horribly obviously time lapsed.

No it's not time lapsed. The open room made the fire burn a little quicker than a closed room. Real fires are not like what you see on TV or the movies. A typical fire in a home reaches flashover in 3 to 7 minutes.

/Firefighter in real life
//I'm sure I'll get a kick out of this thread
 
Rainbowtyedye
2008-02-24 8:46:50 PM  
Doesn't the fact that the one entire side is exposed increase the oxygen that can enter the room, making the fire burn faster? If this was a room in a closed house, or even if it had a few windows open, I would think the fire would have burned a little slower.
 
PacManDreaming
2008-02-24 9:00:51 PM  
I wonder how many pounds of shake and stale Cheetos went up with that couch?


/what?
 
Kiribub
2008-02-24 9:07:07 PM  
That's still scary as hell.
 
poxic
2008-02-24 9:18:00 PM  
The fun part in most rooms is where the carpet melts. Gas-ified hydrocarbons ignite!

/it's a technical term
 
Droppedaschild
2008-02-24 9:47:10 PM  
Flashover = Not fun.
That is all.
 
overlord
2008-02-24 10:30:08 PM  
Hooked_on_Fark: No it's not time lapsed.

The first couple of times I played the video it was sped up and the whole thing was done in about 10 seconds. Now it's running at normal speed for some reason. I think ekdikeo4 had the same problem.
 
Nvisible
2008-02-24 10:31:19 PM  
What is almost more impressive is how quickly the fire fighters knock it back. I shoulda been a fire fighter.
 
Ex-Republican
2008-02-24 10:48:17 PM  
Nvisible: What is almost more impressive is how quickly the fire fighters knock it back. I shoulda been a fire fighter.

I think what would bother me most about being a firefighter wouldn't be DIAF so much as always breathing in toxic vapors released from burning home furnishings and chemicals. Sure you wear a mask but they aren't perfect and that stuff will build up over time.

/still thinks it looks like a cool job though
 
werekoala
2008-02-24 11:05:38 PM  
Rainbowtyedye: Doesn't the fact that the one entire side is exposed increase the oxygen that can enter the room, making the fire burn faster? If this was a room in a closed house, or even if it had a few windows open, I would think the fire would have burned a little slower.

Yeah, but you're still talking ~5 minutes from an incipient fire to a flashover. NIST made some pretty cool videos back in the day showing these kinds of tests; I've had to watch them during pub ed events. There's one that shows the difference a sprinkler can make in a dorm room, too. Pretty wild.
 
Supes
2008-02-24 11:24:39 PM  
Hooked_on_Fark: ekdikeo4: That is horribly obviously time lapsed.

No it's not time lapsed. The open room made the fire burn a little quicker than a closed room. Real fires are not like what you see on TV or the movies. A typical fire in a home reaches flashover in 3 to 7 minutes.

/Firefighter in real life
//I'm sure I'll get a kick out of this thread

Not a firefighter by any means, so hopefully you can correct me.

I was under the impression flashovers occured MORE quickly in closed rooms. Once the oxygen in a room has been entirely consumed, a flashover is more likely.

Granted, having oxygen available makes a fire burn more quickly (of course). But for the actual flashover I thought it was different...

/please someone explain
 
Chak
2008-02-24 11:26:43 PM  
This is even better
Link (new window)
/Not a Rick Roll
 
LarrytheBlueOkie
2008-02-25 12:00:11 AM  
This is pretty much what happens. Used to see these videos when I was a firefighter in my hometown. Tried it once or twice in our training tower...worked.
 
hitmanric
2008-02-25 12:00:27 AM  
Ex-Republican

I think what would bother me most about being a firefighter wouldn't be DIAF so much as always breathing in toxic vapors released from burning home furnishings and chemicals. Sure you wear a mask but they aren't perfect and that stuff will build up over time.

Mobile homes have got to be the worst. Older ones with the shiatty construction go up so quickly, lots of plastics and vinyl. That and you never know the condition of it before the fire.

/SCBAs FTW.
//Scott 2.2
 
kruppz
2008-02-25 12:11:14 AM  
[image from i5.photobucket.com too old to be available]

I caught this chair fire just in time.
scary shiat. talk about smoke!
/grabbed flaming chair and threw it outside. The wind really liked that.
//Check your smoke detectors ppl.
 
T.M.S.
2008-02-25 12:46:07 AM  
That's why I own an official firefighters coat. (my wife's dad makes them)

If there ever were a fire here I wouldn't even have to get up from the sofa.

So I got that goin' for me.
 
peachpicker
2008-02-25 1:09:47 AM  
I'll take drowning over burning any day. What an awful way to go.
 
studebaker hoch
2008-02-25 1:19:17 AM  
kruppz

By the look of that chair, and how fast foam-filled furniture reaches flashover temperature, you had mere seconds before you would have been in serious trouble. Nice work.

What people don't realize is that *confined* combustion is a totally different animal than free burning combustion.

If you take gunpowder and put it in a pile, it deflagrates, burns at a steady linear rate. If you confine it, it detonates, burns at an exponential rate, until it's all gone. The very same gunpowder will give two dramatically different reactions, just based on how it's confined.

A room full of plastic furniture is a lot like gunpowder. It has fuel and oxidizer, and just needs some heat.

A foam couch outside will give a nice, roiling fire in a few minutes. Put the same couch in confined room, and you get a flashover fire in a much shorter time.

Big rooms are no exception, in hotel fires witnesses frequently say "the room exploded", and forensics finds that indeed, it did. Bar patrons are found still at the bar, or in dinner booths. Why did they not leave or at least get up?

They were taken totally by surprise, because the room did not burn, it detonated. You don't get time to get up and leave. Even if you tried, there is no air, no light, a tremendous roar and heat.

The story is always the same.
 
drinkhomebrew
2008-02-25 1:22:11 AM  
Supes: Hooked_on_Fark: ekdikeo4: That is horribly obviously time lapsed.

No it's not time lapsed. The open room made the fire burn a little quicker than a closed room. Real fires are not like what you see on TV or the movies. A typical fire in a home reaches flashover in 3 to 7 minutes.

/Firefighter in real life
//I'm sure I'll get a kick out of this thread

Not a firefighter by any means, so hopefully you can correct me.

I was under the impression flashovers occured MORE quickly in closed rooms. Once the oxygen in a room has been entirely consumed, a flashover is more likely.

Granted, having oxygen available makes a fire burn more quickly (of course). But for the actual flashover I thought it was different...

/please someone explain

I think that is a backdraft?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdraft
 
studebaker hoch
2008-02-25 1:41:23 AM  
A "backdraft" (bad movie) is just a smoke explosion, much like a car backfiring.

Fire in a confined space runs out of oxygen, but still has all kinds of heat, so things in the room continue to break down as the combustion process "coasts" on it's residual heat, charging the room with flammable gases. The fire is actually *out* at that point, or at least very badly choked, not a "happy" fire.

Then a window busts out, or some poor schmoe opens the door, introducing oxygen to a flammable gas already above combustion temperature....

kaBOOM!

Fire is happy again.
 
torch
2008-02-25 1:43:28 AM  
I'm curious why the fire spread in one direction only and burned in the corner for 40 seconds before the paneling and carpet and couch started to go. Accellerants are the only explanation. After that its a mighty fine show though.
 
botsects
2008-02-25 4:10:13 AM  
img185.imageshack.usView Full Size
 
greyspace
2008-02-25 6:50:10 AM  
In 2002, my next-door neighbor's apt. caught on fire. (This was a large studio apt. complex in San Francisco.) She left the door ajar all the time so I heard her screaming for help. She kept yelling "Fire fire!" . I ran and got the fire extinguisher and opened the door. There was just blackness. Smoke. And at the bottom was fire. I could see it. Some kind of appliance appeared to be on fire. (I learned later it was her oxygen tank appliance. 2 oxygen bottles were inside.)

I grabbed an extinguisher and just sprayed it on the floor so it spread out all over the place. I just emptied it. And got another one. I couldn't see anymore fire. But the old woman was still inside croaking for help. Me and a few other people were just standing there, waiting to see if the other person was going to go into the smoke-filled room. (It was blackness. I couldn't see anything.) By this time I heard sirens so I just went outside.

I stayed outside for a while then went inside. The fire investigators were very eager to talk to me. I told my story and they said I saved the whole building. If the fire had exploded the oxygen tanks that would have been it. I still felt bad about not running into the smoke-filled room to help the woman--who died.

Man. That video brought back that memory. I haven't thought about it in a while. Don't want to either.
 
Hooked_on_Fark
2008-02-25 7:43:27 AM  
torch: I'm curious why the fire spread in one direction only and burned in the corner for 40 seconds before the paneling and carpet and couch started to go. Accellerants are the only explanation. After that its a mighty fine show though.

The plastic and foam in furniture and home furnishings contain hydrocarbons and is a source of rapid fire growth. Fires, say before 1970 or so, were primarily fed by cotton, wool, wood, and other natural products.

When the fire is burning in the corner it is heating up the other fuels causing them to release gasses (carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and acrolein among others) that burn. The flashover is when there is sufficient heat to ignite all the gasses in a room at the same time. Oxygen availability, room size, type of contents, and moisture content of the fuels are all variables in when the flashover occurs.


Smoke detectors save lives and give you time to get out before a flashover.

/Ionization for fast flaming fires
//Photocell for slow burning fires
///You need both types in your home
 
Macinfarker [OhFark]
2008-02-25 7:59:11 AM  
I'm not a fire expert, but I smell shenanigans.

When the fireman first lit the carpet, the fire made a quick and straight line right to the wall, and then it stalled. My first impression was that there was a trail of fuel in the carpet.

If there wasn't a line of fuel, I would think it would take the same amount of time for any part of the carpet to light up, and it certainly wouldn't have ignited in a line all the way to the wall...it would have spread out.

So, despite my lack of expertise: Shenanigans.

// Shenanigans, I say....
 
completecontrol
2008-02-25 8:47:40 AM  
Macinfarker: I'm not a fire expert, but I smell shenanigans // Shenanigans, I say....

I agree, looked like some kind of accelerant at the beginning. Perhaps he spilled some when trying to light the carpet.
And the wide open side allowed for mass air flow. Like one giant fireplace.
 
Closed_Minded_Bastage
2008-02-25 9:56:48 AM  
Having survived a fire in my home (and just barely getting my 3 year old daughter out in time), I'm NOT getting a kick out of this thread.

It's quite amazing how fast a house can go up in flames and be a total loss. Only thing that was salvageable were the clothes we were wearing and even then, my blue jeans still stank from the smoke after four or five washings.
 
Archie Godwin
2008-02-25 11:37:24 AM  
wow the same boring shiat they showed us in FF training in the Navy.
 
karmachameleon
2008-02-25 12:01:39 PM  
It really is amazing how fast a fire can engulf a room. Watch that Christmas tree video linked earlier in this thread - 45 seconds, and anybody in that room who didn't get out is already doomed. In this video, yeah, there was a small amount of accelerant to get the fire started and over to the wall, but the rest is natural. In fact, it seemed to stall for the first 40 seconds or so; I'm surprised it took so long to finish the job.

Earlier this week was the 5-year anniversary of The Station club fire (Great White fire), and the video of that fire was posted in that thread (easily found in Google). If you're willing to watch that truly horrifying video, watch how quickly the flames spread once it starts. The entire back wall is engulfed within 30 seconds, and within only 2 minutes, the whole place is ablaze.

Unfortunately, movies and TV have taught us all that fires just burn steadily and slowly, not really spreading, just like a big campfire. I wonder how many people have been lulled by that notion in real life, and didn't act fast enough.

The key lesson: if it's not something you can easily extinguish (i.e. it's a small fire and your extinguisher is immediately available), you have mere seconds to save your life and the lives of everyone in the house. Don't try to take anything, and don't linger. In a case like that tree fire, it's a total loss as soon as the fire begins. Just accept it and get out.
 
kruppz
2008-02-25 12:12:23 PM  
/wants a fireproof house
 
dothemath
2008-02-25 1:14:19 PM  
When I was seven my parents were having some re-modeling done and some jackass plumber caught some insulation on fire while sweating pipe. One hour later and, poof, no more house. Later, I found a slag pile of colorful melted plastic that im pretty sure was my entire LEGO collection.
 
mooseyfate
2008-02-25 3:32:03 PM  
Fire burns things? I call shenanigans.
 
studebaker hoch
2008-02-25 3:50:23 PM  
That holiday tree looked to be the perfection of dryness. We used to burn them 300 at a time, at big desert parties, and you really had to have a choice one to get that kind of burn.

A fresh tree won't even really support flame.
 
mooseyfate
2008-02-25 4:46:43 PM  
studebaker hoch: That holiday tree looked to be the perfection of dryness. We used to burn them 300 at a time, at big desert parties, and you really had to have a choice one to get that kind of burn.

A fresh tree won't even really support flame.

Half of San Diego County begs to differ.

/I know what you're trying to say
 
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