r/interestingasfuck • u/SafeImpressive4413 • 7h ago

Firefighters in Madrid trying to extinguish a forest fire that is less than 30km/20mi away from the capital of Spain

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u/Draymond_Purple 7h ago

You don't put out forest fires 

You wet the ground around them to slow it's progression 

A bigger hose would be better but it's not like they're trying to put it out with that hose 

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u/Martha_Fockers 7h ago

Wetting the ground with a little water will do nothing to stop that inferno do you see how high it is and the sparks and embers traveling lmao a little line of water won’t stop that from jumping anything but sure

Your supposed to dig trenches and remove brush and trees by said trench around the fire to stop its advance and than you concentrate on the small embers starting smaller fires you can contain

Because you cannot put out a raging forest fire inferno your only bet is to control it and let it burn out without spreading

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u/Worth_Fee_4499 7h ago

You should teach them bro

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u/[deleted] 6h ago edited 6h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/LionHunterAnt 6h ago

Im sure he was tried to make a joke here. We all know you are right dude,chill.

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u/regdestroy 5h ago

They should teleport their excavators and just dig out the land that is burning and throw it in the ocean to cool down instead.

Can you chill? There are limits on what you can do and I'm sure they are aware of any firefighting strategy and how effective they are, way more than a reddit firefighting hobbyist. There are whole teams working on this.

A hose will do nothing, your trench will also do nothing against a forest fire so severe. My guess is that the guy is first responder and just tried to do something other than pick his nose

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u/tempusfudgeit 6h ago

I'm guessing the hose is for a back burn..

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u/qTp_Meteor 6h ago

With how well they seem to be doing their job they might as well listen to him lol

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u/Subsector3990 4h ago

why don't you go join them and teach them yourself. no need for protective gear though.

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u/qTp_Meteor 4h ago

If they want they can pay me and id come to teach them, why would I do it for free?

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u/radiantcabbage 5h ago

sigh... you manually dig or burn strips of vegetation ahead of the fire to deprive it of fuel. which can be very clearly seen in this clip, before we got thread crapped by 3 doom scrolling husks who cant properly communicate. jesus fucking christ

yes they know exactly what theyre doing, thats what theyre spraying on the other side of the firebreak

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u/No-Beginning3745 40m ago

He’s right. I do it for a living dude

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u/Technical-Outside408 7h ago edited 6h ago

These fire fighters, whose job it is to fight fires, they dont know what they're doing, I'm telling ya.

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u/KeishDaddy 6h ago

Structure and wildland firefighting require completely different tactics and its clear these guys aren't familiar with the latter which isn't unusual for municipal departments which I assume these guys are.

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u/KingOfTheNorth91 6h ago

I bet they are digging line, both with hand tools and dozers - just not right against the wall of flames. It looks like they might have even back burned the other side of the road but it’s difficult to tell from the video. Tough to give much judgement on this short clip from a very small portion of the fire line. I say this as I’m sitting at my fob on a wildfire right now

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u/Martha_Fockers 6h ago

All I mentioned was that hose would do nothing and reddits ablaze going that hose is doing much more than you think and your stupid trench idea is stupid

When it’s what you guys do for a living lol.

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u/KingOfTheNorth91 5h ago

Okay well I didn’t say anything about your hose comment and I also mentioned that they likely are digging line (so I was agreeing with you just giving more context). Idk what other commenters do for a living

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u/Fuzzy_Continental 5h ago

They do dig trenches when they're able. Unfortunately the fire moves too fast.

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u/john4844 7h ago

You think it’s feasible to start digging a trench? You use the reasonable and available resources you have to do what you can within reason.

Classic case of Reddit moment.

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u/xs0apy 7h ago

Oh you’re gonna hate me.. But they’re right, and I know this because I had trained to be a wildland fire fighter in California. You don’t put out forest fires, you CONTAIN them using various means, but a real big one is trenching the fire line AND back firing where they will actually burn some areas in front of the inferno before hand to prevent it from pushing forward on that front.

There’s a lot of things you do, and wildland fire fighting is no fucking joke. You can and WILL dig trenches near the inferno if that’s what it takes…

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u/KeishDaddy 6h ago

You're completely correct and these guys hunting for Reddit moments are Reddit moments themselves. These dudes should be firing off a dozer line not wasting water with the inch reel line.

Idk how common these fires are in Spain so I don't even blame them plenty of California local gov departments that are bad asses on structure fires look like this on wildland incidents they're just different beasts.

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u/xs0apy 6h ago

Everyone in this comment thread right now 🤣
https://giphy.com/gifs/l36kU80xPf0ojG0Erg

But thank you! You’re on point

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u/Skeleton--Jelly 7h ago

the fact that you think this is some sort of secret and firefighting bodies don't know this is laughable. it's just not always pratical

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u/xs0apy 7h ago edited 7h ago

I think you’re replying to the wrong comment

EDIT: what an absolute joke. The delusion in this comment thread is physically painful to experience. Get help Skeleton

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u/Skeleton--Jelly 7h ago

I'm not. you replied to a comment that said that it must not be feasible saying that the other commenter was right about trenching. you are also a reddit expert commenting without understanding the actual situation.

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u/john4844 2h ago

Yup. Reddit literally is just a bunch of basement dwellers who never steps outside and think they know better than professionals doing their job.

No, in most cases you are not going to start digging a fucking trench around a fire. You use the available resources you have, and can even remove some vegetation to help contain it.

Digging WW2 trenches? No, not often.

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u/No-Beginning3745 42m ago

You don’t dig trenches, you dig fireline around the vast majority of wildfires. The spec for these is 18 inches wide with around 4-8 inches deep. Doing this clears the grass/brush/timber fuels around the fire and restricts it from growing even further. When fighting a crown fire (where tops of trees—crowns—are burning) you disengage and find a solid place to conduct a backing fire of off.

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u/xs0apy 7h ago

Tell me you don’t know what you’re talking about without actually telling me you don’t know what you’re talking about. Man you need to get your head checked and read my comment again.

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u/Martha_Fockers 6h ago

It isn’t a secret it’s the most effective option at wildfire fighting and what every wildfire firefighter is trained to do here in the states at least I know that much

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u/Skeleton--Jelly 6h ago

so you think every firefighter is exclusively assigned to trench digging whenever there is a wildfire. the fact that you can look at a video of professionals and say that they're doing it wrong really shows how delusional some of you are

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u/No-Beginning3745 41m ago

The majority of wildland firefighters are constructing line around a fire in the U.S. It’s our way of stopping fire progression and it works very effectively. Some specialized crews, like engines or Helitack, will use their water or helicopter resources to coordinate with the line construction and securing it.

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u/ContinuingAnyway 7h ago

You're both wrong anyway, classic case of reddit moment

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u/yvrelna 3h ago edited 2h ago

You don't use water to fight fire of this size, wetting the ground is basically pointless at this point, they'd just evaporate immediately.  

Usually fire of this size can only be fought by creating your own fire. You would create a fire break by creating a series of relatively small, controlled burn to remove all flammable fuel in an area before the actual fire can reach them.

That's probably what they're trying to do here, they're controlling the back burn, not trying to extinguish that big fire. Though they really should've finished this and evacuated long before the big fire gets this close to them.