Fire Prevention Week started on October 9, 1911, when Fire Prevention Day was inaugurated. The date of October 9 was chosen because it marks the anniversary of the "Great Chicago Fire of 1871" -- the disaster that killed 250 people and destroyed 17,430 buildings at a cost of $168 million, and the fire that started people thinking in terms of fire prevention rather than only firefighting.
The Ring of Fire in the Pacific Ocean holds more than half of the world's volcanoes.
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only6 people were injured Most burglaries happen above the first but below the seventh floor's in hotel.
The first unscheduled news event on television was a fire on Ward's Island, New York City, in November 1938. An NBC mobile unit happened to be working at a swimming pool just across the river, and turned its cameras on the flames. Newspapers throughout the country took pictures directly from the television screen to use in their papers.
Wood, paper and gasoline don't burn. The gasses they emit DO.
If you threw a stick of dynamite into a fire, most people would scamper like a madman for cover before the dynamite explodes. There is no need to run though, dynamite needs a detonation by a spark or a percussion. The fire alone will not do the trick. However, warming up the dynamite in a fire will make it more responsive to detonation, but it will not cause it to explode. In fact, long ago miners would heat up dynamite in a frying pan when it was especially cold.
Aside from making bizarre films like 'Blue Velvet' and 'Twin Peaks:Fire Walk With Me', David Lynch is/was the lyricist and percussionist for the band Thought Gang, which also included 'Twin Peaks' composer Angelo Badalamenti.
Four fire ant species are found in Texas, three of which are native to the state. The tropical Solenopsis geminata Fabricus and southern Solenopsis xyloni McCook are the most common.
The bark of the redwood tree is fireproof. Fires in redwood forests take place inside the trees.
Long, long ago, women used to put beeswax on their faces (as a cosmedic) often times, they would sit too close to the fire and the wax would melt. From this came the term (mind your beeswax)
In the great fire of London in 1666 half of London was burnt down but only 6 people were injured.
There are two types of fire hydrants used in Newmarket, wet hydrants and dry hydrants. As the name suggest, wet hydrants have water in the barrel at all times and are connected to the town water supply, just by opening the valve pressurized water is supplied to a fire engine. Dry hydrants are connected to a static water source such as a pond or river, in order to get water from them an engine must connect a hard suction line to it and use the engine's pump to draw water from the supply source, this is called drafting.
Fire hydrant caps are painted different colors to allow firefighters to quickly identify the flow rate of any fire hydrant. Knowing the flow rate of a fire hydrant tells them how much water it can provide for firefighting operations. The four basic colors of fire hydrants and their respective flow rates are:
Red fire hydrants have a flow rate under 500 gallons per minute.
Yellow fire hydrants have a flow rate between 500 and 999 gallons per minute.
Green fire hydrants have a flow rate between 1000 and 1499 gallons per minute.
Blue or light blue fire hydrants have a flow rate of 1500 gallons per minute or higher.
After the great fire of Rome in AD64, the emperor Nero ostensibly decided to lay the blame on Christians residing in the city of Rome. These he gathered together, crucified, covered in pitch (tar), and burnt alive. He walked around his gardens admiring the view.
A musket fires by striking a hammer against a flint, which throws a spark onto the gunpowder, igniting it, and firing the bullet out the barrel. Where the spark reaches the powder is called the “pan.” If the powder is not properly packed, it will ignite, but will not cause the bullet to be fired. In such a case, all you get is a “flash in the pan.”
The most unsuccessful animal rescue ever, took place on January 14,1978,when volunteers from the British army, filling in for striking firemen, were called by an elderly lady in South London to get her cat out of a tree. They extricated the cat with no difficulty whatsoever, and then ran over it as they drove back to the Fire Station.
Philadelphia firsts: First free library in the U.S., first zoo in the U.S., first capital of the United States (before and after New York City), first fire department in the U.S., first Catholic school system in the U.S., first capital of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The Roman vomitorium's purpose was not for people who felt sick during banquets to excuse themselves so they could puke. It was used by everyone. The Roman feasts were huge! After every course, the whole party went to the vomitorium, barfed up the feast, and went back to eat some more.
In the 'old days', it use to take a fire in a room approximately 15 minutes to reach a temperature hot enough to create the correct mixtures of heat and fuel to 'flashover'. Today, with the difference in building materials and chemicals, the same condition is reached in about 2-3 minutes.
Ted Turner, head of Turner Broadcasting, was expelled from Brown University for setting fire to his fraternity's float.
The Great Auk, Steller's Sea Cow, Panamanian Fire Coral, San Diego Mud Snail & Eelgrass Limpet are now extinct.
Every 45 seconds, a house catches fire in the United States.
A cargo of flatulent pigs caused an international passenger jet en route to South Africa to make an emergency landing in London. The prize porkers generated so much heat from their natural gases that they caused a fire alarm to go off in the cockpit.
*** End of Fire Trivia ***
