Tuesday, August 26, 2008

A couple of cool videos...

I talk so much in my life about my "Bank Geek" stuff, peppered with some semi-interesting things about my "Fire Geek" life. Here are a couple of videos from my "Fire Geek" side of life...

This first video is from a recent train derailment in Oklahoma back on Aug 22. I was told about this video in a command class I'm taking. Just watch--there's not much else I can say about this other than, "HOLY CRAP!!"



This second video is actually sort of "special" to me. I think this particular fire happened about 4 years ago or so. I'm not real clear on the date. But it happened in Reno, Nevada. Not sure of the weather conditions during the fire, but it appears a couple of things were in favor of this being a BIG problem. One, the fire was somewhat wind-driven. Two, it was burning up-slope. And three, it helped that there were houses at the top of the slope with wood decks and wood facing. What's remarkable about this video is the speed at which it took off. Here in Orange County, we pride ourselves on a relatively fast response time for a major metropolitan fire department. Don't quote me, but our response time is somewhere in the area of 5 - 6 minutes from the time we pick up the phone and say "What's your emergency?" to the time our equipment first pulls on scene. In the big picture, that's a pretty good response time. This video doesn't necessarily tell EVERYTHING about the response time on THIS particular fire by the handling agency (Reno Fire Department), but in my somewhat semi sometimes professional opinion, I don't think a faster response time would have had much effect on this incident. I simply cannot believe how fast this first moves. It's a longer video--and I certainly don't revel in the destruction of someone's home--but from a scientific and fire behavior point of view, the video says LOADS about how crazy fire can be...check THIS video out (rated PG for mild cussing by the voice in the background, which is mild compared to what I probably would have said):



There you go...something NOT band or winter guard or drum corps related.

For once.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ryan,

I met you announcing at Mt/ Sac a few years back and your 1987 VK show is still one of my personal favorites. But I wanted to add something to your fire video post.

I now live in the Reno area and the video you describe of the up-slope fire did happen a few years back (before I relocated from Ventura County).

Scary thing is that they had an exact repeat of the same drill on the same neighborhood a little more than a week ago. 6 houses were lost and kids were seen running from the area prior to response.

They are STILL talking about maybe bringing in clearance requirements. Totally nutty.