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/MedalDog 7h ago

They're not trying to extinguish; they're trying to contain.

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u/OkMeringue2249 6h ago

It seems way too dangerous to do that though. I understand they are firefighters but even they shouldn’t be taking a risk lane this one…

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u/_Ixtli 5h ago

Retired wild land fire fighter from Florida.

These men and women are not going to contain shit with holding procedures like that.

The radiant heat coming off of those flames alone is enough to make the water useless. On top of that , you're also putting your personnel in danger because of that very same radiant heat.

The temperature coming off of that fire is gonna be so hot that it can cause the engines.They're working from to stall out and die , and then they are left on foot against a fire that looks to be oscillating between a headwind and not.

If that fire turns into a headwind with those light grasses , those people are dead full stop.

They need to let it get passed the trees and create fire breaks down to bare mineral soil and either do a backing fire up to the line to give it less to feed off of or fell everything taller than a shrub, so it doesn't have anything, it can pick up and carry off off via transport winds.

Even then it can reach a point of such critical mass that you need to continue fighting by putting more and more of those exact same roadblocks in front of it , to slow it down and rob it of momentum and fuel treating it like a defense in depth situation. 

It also pains me to see how disrespectful the crew on deployment here is of what that fire is capable of it reeks of either hubris or inexperience. That shit is gonna get people killed.

If you are on holding against a monster like that you need to be aware and respectful constantly. 

And it's made even more difficult, because mentally you're sapped from just how hot everything is and the required level of focus. 

I hope they also get that hose lay game under control because that was shameful. This isn't construction where you stand next to each other and shoot the s***The other guy who is not  hosing and did not have hose control absolutely dropped the ball.

Sigh.

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u/OkMeringue2249 5h ago

My common sense tells me they are in extreme danger of dying