POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/04/2009
Household oil fires are notoriously hard to put out, they are pools of fuel that are burning and pouring water on them is not a good idea. Now imagine a pipe from which thousands of gallons of highly flammable oil and gas are shooting out and immediately burning. These fires are typcally so hot that it is impossible to approach them without first cooling the ground around them and working under a continual spray of water. On top of this, every minute that the fire burns means more toxic smoke in the air, more toxic sludge on the ground, and more danger in putting it out. These factors all combine to give those men and women who fight oil well fires the name “HellFighters.”
So how do these HellFighters actually put out burning oil wells? The only way is to starve them of oxygen using methods ranging from blowing them out with concentrated streams of water, to dowsing them with flame retardant chemicals, to the most spectacular of methods, blowing them out with dynamite.
The original method for putting out burning oil wells is blasting them with dynamite. The basic idea behind this technique is simple, detonate an explosive in the heart of the fire and the resultant explosion will remove all the oxygen in the area and thus starve the fire. In practice, it is much harder. First the area must be cooled and all debris removed to prevent re-ignition. Then the firefighters must remove the crust of burned oil that has built up around the wellhead. It may sound easy, but they are working right next to a 3000 degree fire and must continually work behind heat shields and be cooled by streams of sprayed water. Once the area is clear, they have to maneuver highly volatile explosives into the heart of the fire without detonating them prematurely. Then they detonate them and put out the fire. Finished right? Nope, the firefighters then have to go in, remove the old wellhead, replace it with a new one, and then shut off the flow; all this with the oil still raining down on them and threatening a deadly explosion if even the least of sparks is made.
Needless to say, oil well fires are extremely dangerous and difficult to put out.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/03/2009
Infrared light is a type of electromagnetic radiation that has a longer wavelength than visible light. Despite the fact that it’s invisible, it is actually all around us all the time. The interesting thing, is that a digital camera with a CCD in it (most digital cameras use them) can see infrared. In fact they are so good at seeing it, that digital cameras actually incorporate an infrared filter to prevent interference.
Tv remote controls use infrared light to send signals to the tv. While they are invisible to the naked eye, a digital camera (even one with the IR filter still in place) can see them. See the video demonstration here.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/02/2009
Its April of 1860 and you are out following your daily routine. Suddenly you see on the horizon a small dust cloud. As the source draws near, you see a lone horse and rider, galloping quickly across the American countryside in a race to complete their part of the nation’s newest mail delivery system: The Pony Express.
In April of 1860, a new fast mail delivery service was started. It consisted of horses and riders carrying mail in a relay system across the US from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. Each rider would carry saddle bags full of mail from one station to the next, where it would be handed off to the next rider for the next leg of the journey.
The Pony Express lasted for only 18 months before it was disbanded in favor of stage coaches and later a transcontinental telegraph system. The Pony Express was never a commercial success and ended completely bankrupt.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/01/2009
In November of 1944 as the second world war was nearing its end, a hydrogen balloon floated over the Alaskan coast and dropped a small bomb. It didn’t do any damage whatsoever, but it marked the beginning of an extremely unusual type of attack; Fire Balloons.
The Japanese Fire Balloons were hydrogen filled balloons much like a weather balloon, with various types of explosive payloads. These balloons were launched from Japanese beaches into the gulf stream and floated across the Pacific Ocean into US airspace. Once above US soil, the balloon’s payload was dropped and detonated and shortly after, an explosive charge detonated the hydrogen in the envelope was detonated as well. The balloons also had mechanisms that detected the change in altitude of the balloon and adjusted ballast and hydrogen so as to keep them within the confines of the gulf stream.
Over the course of about six months, more than 9000 of these balloons were launched into the sky and an estimated 1000 actually reached US soil. These balloons were extremely inefficient and caused only a minor amount of damage. In addition, the US press agreed not to release information about the balloons, thus preventing the Japanese from knowing that they had any effectiveness at all.
There is only one recorded incident of a fire balloon actually killing anyone. The balloon had drifted over Oregon and gotten caught in a tree. It was found by a group of people on a church picnic and exploded while they were attempting to pull it from the tree, killing the pastor’s wife and five of the attending children. After the deaths, the media blackout was lifted so as to warn the public about the dangers of these balloons.
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