(Don't) Make Your Own Fire Tornado 86
Flash Modin writes "In the last two weeks, both water and fire tornadoes have been widely covered by the media. As any physicists would have, we immediately thought 'I want to do that!' SO... You should absolutely, under no circumstances, not attempt to recreate the following fire tornado; but if you did, here's exactly what you would need, how you would do it, and what it would look like."
There's an easier way... (Score:5, Informative)
All you have to do is acquire a bottle of lighter fluid and a lighter. A zippo lighter works best. Spray a puddle of lighter fluid on cold pavement. Light the fluid (may take a while, it's difficult to ignite when cold). Once it's burning, stand back and spray a steady stream of lighter fluid into the flames. After a spray or two, a fire tornado will develop. I've made fire tornadoes that were an inch or two thick and at least ten feet tall.
Re:There's an easier way... (Score:5, Insightful)
+5 Interesting but Insane
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You can imagine the rest.
No I can't. There's no oxygen in the bottle. I can see people being burned by spraying too much out and creating a fireball, but I'm having trouble envisioning a scenario in which the bottle explodes without already having been on fire long enough to melt through the plastic.
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Actually in the case of a bottle of lighter fluid there can be oxygen in there that was just sucked into the bottle from repeated squirtings.
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You can imagine the rest.
No I can't. There's no oxygen in the bottle. I can see people being burned by spraying too much out and creating a fireball, but I'm having trouble envisioning a scenario in which the bottle explodes without already having been on fire long enough to melt through the plastic.
Just because you can't envision how it happens doesn't mean it can't happen. It's not that the flame burns up the stream while your squeezing. Its when you stop squeezing the can and it sucks air and burning fluid up into the can. I have a co-worker whose kid did this and the can exploded and gave him 2nd degree burns plus a few cuts on his hands from the metal.
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The problem is: most people are not able to do this properly (and/or are drunk) when they try. They let air into the bottle and squirt air out again. The fluid makes a
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That is not enough. It needs to be bigger. Much, much bigger!
seems like parent AC needs a concrete mixer truck
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The things the Mythbusters guys like to blow up?
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Re:There's an easier way... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah yes... I seem to remember this particular method resulting in second degree burns on two of my friends when the fire flashed back to the bottle of lighter fluid and exploded.
Not recommended. Steady streams of flammable liquid connecting flame to a fuel bottle is a stupid idea.
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> Steady streams of flammable liquid connecting flame to a fuel bottle is a stupid idea.
Steady streams of stuff are not the problem. Lots of technical applications and my burning of liters upon liters of stuff depend on this.
Once you stop pressing a bottle and you suck air and a bit of lighter fluid back into the bottle the problems can start. If the stuff is still burning once it's back in the bottle, you have a problem.
Re:There's an easier way... (Score:5, Funny)
I worked at a small airport, and trained as crash crew.
Part of the training involved a six-foot-square metal pan full of oil, which the instructor lit.
It was while standing there with the hose, hand on the lever but thinking that the foot-thick tornado of fire towering over me was way too beautiful to put out, that I realised I maybe wasn't the best person for the job...
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Not uncommon for pyromaniacs to become firefighters.
In rural areas, a number of arson cases end up being traced back to volunteer firefighters. Most commonly involving abandoned structures or barns.
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> In rural areas, a number of arson cases end up being traced back to volunteer firefighters. Most commonly involving abandoned structures or barns.
Clearly, this can not happen in areas that are not rural.
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It was while standing there with the hose, hand on the lever but thinking that the foot-thick tornado of fire towering over me was way too beautiful to put out, that I realised I maybe wasn't the best person for the job...
I'm not quite sure you'd have the same reaction if said flames also constituted an immediate threat to your and others' life.
Whoosh!! (Score:1, Funny)
That “whooshing” sound you just heard were flames drafting over your head.
jet propelled bottle (Score:2)
get a can of alcahol-butane mix, e.g. Lynx deoderat.
get a plastic bottle, not to big.
spray a moderate amount (not too much) deoderant into the bottle. (hot days are best).
wait.. a tiny while.
place bottle on ground
ignite opening
jet propelled bottle!
Make sure the screen is really secure... (Score:5, Funny)
Not just water and fire (Score:2, Funny)
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Sorry troll, iPhone plays it just fine.
And sorry parent troll, but that video also plays just fine as Webm. Or flash.
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Any number of ways, depends on how you want to do it.
iPhone - Just works, all YouTube videos show up as playable due to the device pulling the H.264 version inside an MPEG container.
Android 2.1 and below (aka, ~70% of the Android platform) - Pretty much the same as the iPhone
Android 2.2 (a tad below 30%) - install Flash, or keep using the old method
Firefox - The popular way seems to be with Greasemonkey and scripts to pull down the same H.264 file. Google search Firefox youtube no flash
Chrome, Safari - Jus
Awwww (Score:2)
C'mon. This is the internet. Blowtorch. Blower fan. Bottle of oxygen.
GO!
You call that a flame tornado? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a real flame tornado: Nate Smith, a gent I know personally, doin' his thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qulN52bR9vk [youtube.com]
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Re:You call that a flame tornado? (Score:5, Funny)
Get on /b/ and post a video of yourself punching a kitten.
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Happy to oblige - http://www.srl.org/machines/flamehurricane/. All you need are several pulse jets with 150lbs of thrust each!
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"I want to see a flame hurricane, can you forward the suggestion for me?"
You came too late. You should have been at Dresden by mid forties!
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The safe and sane method I learned in Hollywood is to use compressed air to spray Lycopodium pollen into the air, and we used rubber cement for ignition. The rubber cement didn't blow out from the wind, and it was utterly controllable with a flick of the air valve. We made some little bitty 30-foot fireballs &c., but really the sky's the limit on this. A neighbor told me about working on a movie called "The Thorn Birds" where some rookie director insisted on setting a real fire for authenticity in his b
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That. is. awesome.
Mentos (Score:2)
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Yeah, this whole thing is a perfect example of how intelligence doesn't necessarily correlate with wisdom.
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Oooh... The mentos thing with a flammable liquid instead of coke and dissolved oxygen instead of CO2.....
Bigger, stronger, with more destructive capability (Score:2)
Back before I knew such things existed in nature, I had the idea of hopefully causing a fuel/air explosion with a regular tornado.
The idea was to pump a bunch of fuel into a regular tornado and ignite it, theoretically causing the tornado to dissipate.
Unfortunately a lack of funds and people brave enough to man the trebuchets kept me from my plan.
But it just seems more _eventful_ than a lazy susan and lighter fluid.
Yes, my house insurance has extra coverage.
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You mean like this?: http://www.xkcd.com/748/ [xkcd.com]
More power (Score:4, Funny)
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Don't forget to use a car with an oil pan/lubrication system that is designed to work at all angles.
Otherwise you will be purchasing an engine rebuild from your local mechanic before you get bored of the fire tornado.
-hps
Not bad (Score:4, Interesting)
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That looks like it could be this sort of structure: http://www.mrsciguy.com/box.html [mrsciguy.com]
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Fun With Cremora (Score:2)
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The Mythbusters did that too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw4ZRqmxOc [youtube.com]
(Obviously they scaled it up a bit :))
They did it wrong (Score:2)
Sorry I didn't read to here before I posted above. If they had shot the air across the TOP of the powder, then the venturi -like effect would have atomized the particles properly, the igntion would have been nearly instantaneous, and they wouldn't have wasted hundreds of pounds of powder creating a smoldering mess around their device. This has been done for years, and the flame can be turned on and off at will. I suppose Cremora is cheaper than Lycopodium powder. It looks like maybe I should set up a proper
The mythbusters have to try this! (Score:2)
The mythbusters have to try this!
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What myth will they be busting?
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Well... the myth of... umm...
Ah! The myth of securing wire mesh with Play-Doh of course!
The 10 meters high tornado of fiery death will be a logical follow op for them :)
Cool Clothes bro! (Score:1)
RE: (Don't) Make Your Own Fire Tornado (Score:1)
Reminds me of toothpick plasma (Score:2)
This fire tornado thing reminds me of toothpick plasma [youtube.com]. Not the same thing, but seems to be about as neat.
Yet another classic with LOX (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPxDOEdsX8 [youtube.com]
ANd of course there is one you really should *never* do unless you are Hunter Thompson: bottles of propane, a large caliber rifle, and a packet of nitroglycerin.
Company made GIANT versions of this (Score:2)
Back in the days when I used to design theme parks (fun profession!) I used to work with a company (Spectra F/X) that made these.
Most spectacularly GIANT versions of these flame tornados were used in Universal Studio's attraction "Backdraft" based on the movie of the same name. At least that what I think it was named; the title was about the hazard a firemen faced when entering a burning building that suddenly gets an influx of more oxygen. Anyway, the attraction is pretty impressive lots of real, hot fir
LAME-O (Score:1)
Nice and all (Score:2)
But I think for sheer apocalyptitude it doesn't beat the fire and lightning volcanic ash cloud [askamathematician.com]
That's not a tornado. THIS is a tornado! (Score:3, Interesting)
It was a few decades ago, but in my teens I had occasion to spend a weekend at a fireman's weekend where a great many and varied workshops were being given on any number of esoteric aspects of firefighting, and some of the more mundane. I took some of the mundane workshops on forest fire fighting and such. But I made my weekend more of a relaxed affair so I would have time to wander and see what everyone else was up to.
One group was busy creating fire tornadoes, and putting them out. But what I am referring to here, is nothing at all like what is featured in this video, or anything at all like Hollywood has ever dared venture.
The group was training in how to assault oil fires and extinguish them with a water hose, which is no mean trick. To make matters more complicated for them, dead center of the oil fire was a husk of tanker truck tank. This sat in the middle of a concrete pool ~10 meters square (30' x 30'). The pool was filled with six inches of water. The instructors would dump a full oil drum of oil into the pool, creating an oil slick that covered the entire surface. The training crew ready, they would toss in a match.
Now THAT is a fire tornado!
The result was a literal tornado of fire, a veritable solid pillar of flame that would do Moses proud! Thirty feet in diameter, this vortex roared so loud you could barely hear the shouted commands of the fireman as they assaulted the monster. It ripped and twisted, the spiraling cylinder reaching easily a hundred feet or more, straight up. The flame was dense red, and so intense there was nothing opaque about it. Pure fire, at it most intense.
I sat there for hours watching as they put it out, and lit up another, over and over.