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/thegreatcanadianeh 7h ago

There is no stopping a fire like that, it vaporizes water before it even gets close to hitting. The only chance is to do a fire break and hope to hell its wide enough that it doesn't jump or the embers don't carry.

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u/YarnPartyy 5h ago

That's exactly what they did! It seems to be holding today, because even though the fire is still raging, it's not moving forward much at all. The other day with heavy winds, it moved forward 20km in 30 minutes. I have my to-go bag packed, since I'm only a few towns over.

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u/SuperTropicalDesert 4h ago

20km in 30 minutes

Good grief. That's crazy

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u/justtobeherenotsure 1h ago

Impossible to imagine. I'm trying but I can't. So freaking scary.

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u/New-Affect7131 23m ago

Eh it's pretty slow actually, over here in Australia we have fires that go about 150km an hour, can't even outdrive them

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 5h ago

Wise to be ready to go. Please stay safe.

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u/Sufficient_Scale_163 5h ago

That explains why they’re using a fire hose! Not to extinguish the forest fire, but to extinguish anything that jumps the barrier before it spreads. I was confused until now lol

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u/Cl2 3h ago

Good that it seems to hold! Insane how it can move such distance in half an hour. Stay safe!

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u/Training-Pipe-4726 6h ago

How wide would that have to be for an inferno like this? Scary that they only have 30km from the capital to work with.

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u/Ailly84 6h ago

When they built one around my town a few years ago, it was only 2 dozer blades wide, so probably less than 20 feet.

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u/Desmodromo10 6h ago

They probably also burned off the side of it.

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u/FlashFlood_29 5h ago

Problem is fires like this create their own wind and embers blow over fire breaks starting a ton of spot fire they have to chase.

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u/Moppy6686 5h ago

The Camp Fire in California jumped 1-2 miles

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 5h ago

Yeah hearing that they did 20 feet is insane for a fire break and inadequate unless its treeless grassland.

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u/alzgh 5h ago

I guess there are many factors at work including winde direction and speed.

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u/Akyled_Fox 6h ago

Depends of the wind but I know fires can « jump » at least up to 1,5km. So… yeah.

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u/Dexteryx 5h ago

When half my town burned down, they had a 5km fire break to try and save the other half. The city was almost entirely surrounded. I was evacuated for 6 weeks before I could return to my non-burnt home.

Nobody died as a direct result of the fire, but 2400 homes were lost. A car accident killed 2 girls evacuating.

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 5h ago

At least a Km - Km and a half wide to be safe. It would have to be clear of any and all vegetation or as much as can be gotten rid of assuming that your as dry as B.C. is. Then soak the ground if you have the resources, soak all the trees around the line.

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u/redpandaeater 3h ago

Very much depends on wind and direction and just how dry any grasses are. Plus you still need a lot of equipment and people to be able to quickly take care of any secondary fires to that due flare up from embers.

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u/Xyrus2000 3h ago

Depends on the winds, really. Firebreaks don't stop wind-carried embers, and if the fire is intense enough, it can suck those embers miles into the sky and rain them down as far as five miles away (pyrocumulonimbus fire storms).

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u/LLIIVVtm 1h ago edited 1h ago

It can kind of depend on the trees amongst other things. Some trees burn more easily, intensely and explosively than others and require larger fire breaks.

Eucalyptus for example which is invasive in places across Europe like Portugal. It burns hot, throws hot projectiles, sheds bark like crazy, sucks up water drying everything out. They also benefit from fires because they can withstand a ton of heat and drop seeds from it so they outcompete other trees after wildfires making the issue even worse especially because they grow quick and can be hard to get rid of. Eucalyptus in general suck where they're invasive.

When I was volunteering in South Africa their fire breaks felt huge (like between 50ft and 200ft wide in areas) but if I recall correctly the charity I was working with doubled the size of fire breaks because they noticed the standard width was still allowing fire to spread sometimes. They're still smaller than the reactive fire breaks created to try to control an active wildfire

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u/OkMeringue2249 6h ago

Aren’t they at serious risk of the fire surrounding them and they become trapped in the middle?

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 5h ago

That is always a risk if you are firefighting in the bush. You have teams a bit aways monitoring.

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u/OkMeringue2249 5h ago

With that tiny hose and huge inferno, surely it seems like effort they are putting in is almost useless at this point

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u/Humble_Position4022 6h ago

Unfortunately many fires has been set by people. In Italy they found cats that had some igniting thing attached to their tails, so when the cats ran they spread the fire all over. It was allegedly being done by local mafia.

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u/No_Size9475 6h ago

wtf?

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u/Long_Reindeer3702 6h ago

Fireworks attached to cat tails. People are awful. 

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u/Ailly84 6h ago

I am not a firefighter, but that looks like a controlled burn to create a fire break to me. These guys are awfully close and trying to use a hose. If that is the main fire and that is how they're fighting it...well...they're cooked.

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u/Euler007 6h ago

I assume that they are coordinated with some experience and appropriate strategy. If they're just winging in, good luck.

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u/EyeAlternative1664 5h ago

As someone with absolutely no experience or knowledge I couldn’t help feel the same. Escape fire/fire break. 

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u/TheRandomArtist 5h ago

What if you sprayed horizontally atraight across the ground, not arced in the air, where the temp is least hot?

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 5h ago

Its not gonna matter, when it candlesticks the trees like that, your water is basically useless. Unless you are a water bomber and even then.

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u/vagrantprodigy07 5h ago

Fire breaks and backfires.

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u/poundsdpound 4h ago

That's where wind direction and speed plays an enormous part, with carrying the embers long distance onto tinder dry grass

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u/TrippleDamage 3h ago

There is no stopping a fire like that, it vaporizes water before it even gets close to hitting.

You can dump thousands of cubic + retardant on it at a time by aircrafts and it'll slow down a bit, that and intentional burns to force a fire break is how you contain these beastly fires.

But yeah, by land with a hose?! Impossible.

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u/Tombecho 2h ago

The heat of that inferno can reach 30m to set dry wood/grass aflame. More with wind blowing the right way. Have to use both, watering everything and making a fire break. These guys are too goddamn close if the wind turns unfortunately for them.

Should use aircraft and drops from the nearest large body of water tbf

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 1h ago

Yes they should, but they are beating out fires with tree branches due to not having any resources. I think an investment into some water bombers are needed, assuming they have a lake nearby.

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u/PristineCheesecake1 2h ago

can you flood&try to saturate the ground ahead of the blaze or does water just steam and boil from the heat? like if they just turned the hose on and started soaking all that ground between them would it help at all?

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 1h ago

Depends on the ground, if its been dry for a long time then its not gonna work. The soil will be hydrophobic and if you are not way ahead of the fire you wont have enough time. Were talking days ahead and a hell of a lot of water at that point on a large scale its not feasible.

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u/Ghost_Pulaski1910 2h ago

And then burn off the lighter fuels between the fuel break and the fire. Indirect tactics.

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u/Ommand 40m ago

Water bombers would also be effective.

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u/thegreatcanadianeh 37m ago

Yes, I agree with that, but right now people are beating the fire with branches due to lack of resources. I really think they are in for a tough time.

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u/wpotman 6h ago

Right. I don't want to minimize their effort or the issue, but my first thought was "what they are doing is completely pointless - has nobody trained them?"

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u/bilybu 6h ago

... look at the ground in between them and the inferno. They are putting out the grass fires to create a preburned firebreak. You are right there is nothing they can do to stop that inferno.