Smokey Bear
You probably know Smokey Bear as the face of fire prevention, but do you know that he was introduced in an effort to help win a war?
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It all started in 1942, during WWII. One year after firing on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine approached the California coast and fired a blast of shells. The shells hit an oil field in Santa Barbara, near the Los Padres National Forest.
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There was now concern that more attacks would be made on the American mainland and that forests and homes would be destroyed. The precious timber from our forests was needed to build battleships and military transport crates and the U.S. could not afford to lose more trees.
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On top of threats from the enemy, there were already problems with arson and accidental fires. Saving our forests became a matter of national concern and, because most of the firefighters had joined the fight in the war, it was up to the local residents to do it. Thus, a national campaign was born.
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In 1944, the Walt Disney movie, Bambi, was produced. In order to aid the campaign for the prevention of forest fires, Disney allowed the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Program to use Bambi for their posters. However, Bambi was only on loan for a year. The Prevention Program needed an ion for their campaign. Since animals had proven to be very successful in the initial program, it was decided another animal would be used for the continuing campaign. A bear was selected and Albert Staehle created the original Smokey Bear poster. The bear was named “Smokey” after the former assistant chief of the New York Fire Department, Mr. “Smokey” Joe Martin.
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In 1952, Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins composed a song to commemorate the popular icon. However the words “Smokey Bear” did not fit rhythmically in the song . So a ‘the” was added to the name, making him “Smokey the Bear.” Six years after the campaign started, a real black bear cub was rescued in New Mexico during a forest fire. He became the official mascot of the campaign.
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At the time of the initial campaign, 9 out of 10 forest fires were started by people. As result of the campaign, forest fires decreased from 167,277 annually in the 1930s to 106,306 annually in the 1990s.
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The San Francisco Fire
In 1906, the San Francisco Earthquake soon turned into the San Francisco Fires. Fires that had already started were intensified by the fact that the earthquake had busted gas lines which fed the flames and water pipes so that firefighters could not put out those flames. Add to that the fact that earthquake insurance had not been invented yet, but fire insurance had. So those homeowners whose houses sustained considerable damage due to the earthquakes decided to torch their houses in order to receive a payout.
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Pants on Fire
The childhood chant “Liar, liar, pants on fie hanging on a telephone wire” is an adaptation of a 1010 poem. The first stanza reads “Deceiver, dissembler, your trousers are alight. From what pole or gallows shall they dangle in the night?”
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When Lyn Hiner, mother of two, innocently places some rocks in her pocket that her two girls had collected on the beach, she had no idea she would end up in a hospital bed because of them later that day. After having the rocks in her pocket for a couple of hours, she began feeling what she thought was a bug biting her. Next thing she knew, her shorts were aflame. The rocks were covered in a phosphorous coating, which lab workers said combined with the friction and oxygen to cause it to catch on fire.
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At the beginning of the 1956 Olympic games in Melbourne, Australia, Barry Larkin, a local college student, managed to fool onlookers as they watched him run down the street with a fake Olympic torch. The torch was made from a chair leg and a lit pair of underpants placed in a plum pudding can. Non the wiser, the crowd cheered Larkin on as he successfully passed the fake torch to The mayor of Sydney, Pat Hills. Before it was discovered that it was a prank, Larkin managed to slip quietly away.
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On July 7th, 2009, a call came in to the Strattanville Volunteer Fire Department concerning a fire that was very close by. In fact, it was on their very own roof! The cause was found to be arson and when the perpetrators were caught, one of them admitted to lighting his boxer shorts and throwing them onto the roof of the fire station. Apparently the irony of it all was just too much for the young man to resist stating that he “thought it would be funny” if a fire station caught fire, itself.
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Spontaneous Combustion
If you’ve heard of spontaneous human combustion, you may have dismissed it as the stuff of legend. However, there have been over 200 cases of such occurrences reported in history. In many of these instances, the legs or feet, along with the skull were the only remnants left of the victim. And in those cases, the feet remained socked and shoed with nor even the slightest hint f burning on them. Furniture, bedding and objects around the victim are also found to be untouched, ruling out the case of an external fire source.
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Among the numerous stories is the one of Robert Francis Bailey. Bailey was a homeless man who was also known as the local drunk. Because he didn’t have the money to afford alcohol from the store, he would drink denatured alcohol (ethanol with additives that is often used in camping stoves). Such alcohol is known to be quite poisonous, so the volume he was known to have consumed should have killed him. Instead, he was discovered in a stairwell of a building surrounded by flames. The police that found Bailey reported that a blue flame was shooting out a slit in his abdomen. The police proceeded to shove a hose into the slit and drown out the flame, but it was too late. Bailey had already died from the fire. No external means of ignition were found on his body and since he was known not to smoke, the general consensus was that he truly ignited from within. The amount of denatured alcohol found in his gut was thought to be the culprit.
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A German insurance company warns sea captains about the dangers of shipping pistachio nuts. According to the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code, the “fat decomposition in pistachio nuts leads to the risk of self-heating and, ultimately, to a cargo fire.”
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Did you know...cell hones can spontaneously combust? According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, all batteries have the capability of busting into flames. But cell phone batteries are especially at risk since they are often places close to metals such as coins or pens. The metal can cause the battery to heat up even more. There have been a few reports of cell-phone owners having their pants or shirt catch on fire after a prolonged time of having it in their pockets.
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In 1666 a London fire, which started in a downtown bakery, lasted for three days and resulted in approximately 13,500 destroyed homes.
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Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill.
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The bark of a Redwood tree is fire resistant.
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The typical house fire doubles in size every minute.
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Earth is the only known planet that has enough oxygen for fire to exist.
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The color of the flame is an indicator of the amount of oxygen a fire is getting. Yellow flames indicate low oxygen, while blue flames indicate a high amount of oxygen.
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Dalmatians – The Official Fire Dog
During the 17th and 18th century, the Dalmatian was often used as a “companion” dog for horses and ran along side them as they pilled carriages. They even slept with the horses at night to keep the horses from being stolen. The Dalmatian naturally transitioned to helping fire horses as well. Because the fire horses were required to remain at the fire house for long periods of time, Dalmatians were used to keep them company and keep them calm.
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Fighting Fire with Fire
In the future, we may see fire fighters dousing fire with, not water, but electricity! Researchers from Harvard University have come up with a “wand” that shoots out long beams of electricity. The electric fields in the beams attract the carbon particles in the flames, allowing firefighters to manipulate and even extinguish the flames with them.
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Researchers believe that not only could the idea be seen in the hands of firefighters, but it could eventually replace water sprinklers in the ceilings of public buildings.
U S Legacies
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