It doesn’t take long for a grass fire to turn into a raging inferno that sweeps through entire forests, so a pair of quick-thinking boaters in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, used their jet boat to create a massive rooster tail that helped douse the flames before firefighters arrived on scene.
Among the many dangers firefighters face at work each day, those high-powered water hoses have enough pressure to cause some serious damage if they ever got loose. But they also make for an entertaining makeshift carnival ride that looks far more aggressive than any sketchy mechanical bull you’ll find at a…
Even if your home survives a fire, there’s a good chance you’ll be dealing with quite a bit of water damage after emergency personnel extinguish the flames. But the creators of the Automist feel a gentler, more targeted approach to fire fighting is a better way to protect a home from serious damage.
Fighting a fire in a towering skyscraper poses unique challenges for both the equipment and the firefighters. That’s why the fire departments of large cities have dedicated high-rise units–but Dubai wants to do one better by equipping its firefighters with jetpacks.
The world has already seen a drone that shoots paintballs and a drone that shoots bullets. Now, thanks to a research team from Nebraska, there is a drone that shoots fire balls. But don’t freak out—it’s for a good cause.
No image says summer more than a cracked-open fire hydrant spewing city water into a New York street. Although not intended as their primary role in the metropolis, it turns out that fire hydrants have served as guerrilla heat relief for 120 years.
Last week firefighting crews couldn’t do their job because five amateur drones were circling the area. And this wasn’t the first time. Drones are getting in the way, and some lawmakers in California want to change all that. Specifically they’d like to give emergency responders the legal ability to disable drones.
The faster you can pour water on a forest fire, the faster you can put it out. And this prototype aerial water-bucket system from Spanish designers Inventec sucks up water three times faster than existing systems.
As the post-conflict cleanup from the first Iraq War demonstrated, oil well fires are nearly impossible to put out without taking extraordinary measures. Luckily, this extreme measure is both super effective and totally badass.
When firefighters have to enter a burning building, much of their job still involves blindly feeling their way through dense plumes of toxic fumes in search of those trapped inside. However, a novel new helmet design could one day give firefighters the ability to see through the smoke and hear beyond the roar of the…
How fires will be extinguished in the skyscrapers of the future, according to the March 1927 issue of Science and Invention magazine.
The five-alarm fire that destroyed a San Francisco apartment building this week put the city's municipal water supply to the test: When water pressure began to dwindle, firefighters tapped an emergency system that was built below the city—all the way back in 1913.
It makes perfect sense. Burning buildings are very dangerous places for people to enter, so when there's a fire that needs to be put out, why not recruit robots to do the dirty work?
Need to put out a forest fire? Why not bomb it with chemical-filled missiles? At least that was the plan in 1961.
As of this morning, the Rim Fire burning through Yosemite National Park has scorched 237,341 acres—roughly 370 square miles—since it caught on August 17th, presumably from an illegal marijuana grow operation. Firefighters from across the state and country have been battling the blaze nonstop and currently have the…
When we look at visions of the future from the 20th century we often imagine the lone inventor or solitary artist concocting the fantastical world of tomorrow in isolation. But it's amazing how frequently both government regulation and the lack of regulation can influence the future of a given city in ways we don't…
"The tallest building in the world is on fire. You are there with 294 other guests. There's no way down. There's no way out." So read the poster for the 1974 disaster movie Towering Inferno, which depicts an epic tale of survival in the badly wired 138 story Glass Tower in San Francisco and the race to put the fire…
Traditional fire fighting techniques have relied on dousing flames with water or chemicals. But in an effort to fight fires in combat environments, DARPA has developed a groundbreaking technique where flames can be extinguished by using electricity and sound. But while the proof of concept has been established, the…
Add another eerily lifelike robot to the military's rapidly expanding android army. This one is, of all things, a mechanical firefighter. And not only can it climb ladders like its flesh-and-blood counterparts, it's designed to interact with human handlers in a kind of human/robot bucket brigade.
Check out this UK video of a row house explosion. Taken by the Engine cam, it's frightening and amazing at the same time.
