You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Using Wizardry to fight fires.
I’m not talking fire breathing dragons. I’m not talking Arthur’s sword in the stone. I’m not talking Merlin’s tempestuous flatulence.
I’m talking scientific blasts of electrical suffocation.
First: being a fire fighter takes guts and dedication. Only the bravest of the brave need apply. From the very beginning, being a smoke eater meant strapping on your bravery like a badge of honor and rushing into the heart of the flame. Through smoke and heat and possible death, fire fighters selflessly give of themselves to protect life and property.
The weapon of choice?
Historically it has been WATER.
A hose, maybe an ax, but definitely water, gushing forward, splashing the flames, cooling the heat, destroying the destroyer.
It’s been this way since the first lightning strike hit the first tree and man found himself warming himself by the burning bush.
Water has been and still is the element of choice to extinguish the flames.
But now, from the Harry Potter science lab comes a new way to suppress the unsupressable.
DATELINE: BOSTON
Scientists have perfected a way of controlling fires using a wand that puts out flames by zapping them with electricity.
The Harry Potter-style device could enable firefighters to quell flames without having to soak property with water and foam.
“Controlling fires is an enormously difficult challenge. Our research has shown that applying large electric fields can suppress flames very rapidly. We’re very excited about the results,” one of the scientists involved in the project reports.
Well who would have thunk it? Using electricity to fight fire.
It sounds like something from the Sorcerers Apprentice where a psychotic Mickey Mouse conducting an orchestra of electrified broom sticks.
According to published reports, scientists first noticed 200 years ago that electricity can affect the shape of flames, making them bend, twist, flicker and even die out.
SI Swimsuit model, Elle McPherson has the same affect on the opposite sex.
The scientists connected a 600-watt electrical amplifier to a wand-like probe and used it to shoot beams of electricity at a flame more than a foot high. The flame was snuffed out.
If only Al Capone had known.
So how does it work? Well from the Mr. Wizard handbook, Flames contain soot particles that become electrically charged during combustion. The particles respond strongly to electrical fields and can be blasted away, carrying the flame with them.
Can you imagine a future where turn out gear is replaced by a cape and dark glasses. Can you imagine the fire fighter of the future laying down his hose and picking up his magic electrical wand and fighting the fire with fire so to speak.
A brigade of Harry Potter smoke eating book worms snuffing out the “un-snuffable.”
Fire Fighters of the future may look more like pocket protector wearing geeks with slide rules and calculators. Gone are the days where a fire engine screams to a fire. The future promises to replace the big red rig with an electrical truck with a electrodes and fire suppression wands that blast away fires.
The future could look like a scene from Ghostbusters where Venkman and his merry band of ghost dispatchers launch rays of plasma energy at anything with a pulse.
I guess Dick Chaney has nothing to worry about.
Say hello to the new Harry Potter F.D. Chief Dumbledore report to the magic wand station immediately.
And that is crazy.™