| shelldrake | 17 Jun 2009 1:40 a.m. PST |
Ok, so it isnt really a wargaming item, but I am justifying it as a tactical lesson for wargamers. Watch this news video and carefully listen to where people were told to hide until the police arrived: link You want me to hide where? |
| Whatisitgood4atwork | 17 Jun 2009 1:59 a.m. PST |
That's from the Wylie Coyote school of finding safe places. |
| peleset | 17 Jun 2009 2:53 a.m. PST |
It's the first place I would hide. I'd then call my wife on my mobile to let her know I was okay while I light up a cigarette and wait it out. |
| 14th Brooklyn | 17 Jun 2009 3:04 a.m. PST |
Actually hiding behind the pumps is not that bad an idea. The internal workings include a lot of hardened metal parts, giving you good protection, at about the level of an engine block.
Risk from fire is extremely low. A hit by a bullet will not set anything ablaze without an outside source of ignition. A single shot or even a number of shots will not set petrol ablaze. Not even tracer rounds will do that. Anything else is a Hollywood myth! Cheers, Burkhard |
| Klebert L Hall | 17 Jun 2009 5:37 a.m. PST |
A single shot or even a number of shots will not set petrol ablaze. Not even tracer rounds will do that. Correction: will not always, reliably set petrol ablaze… Not the same, at all.
-Kle. |
| CPBelt | 17 Jun 2009 6:33 a.m. PST |
Back last year when people were puncturing car fuel tanks to steal $4 USD a gallon gas, a reputable radio news show ran an article explaining how hard it is to ignite gasoline. Turns out the fumes are highly explosive, not so much the liquid. (We don't smoke at pumps because of the fumes coming out of the car tank and the pump.) The only affect tossing a lit cigarette into a puddle of petrol probably will have is putting out the cigarette. They talked how all the fuel explosions were so Hollywood. Takes a lot to ignite gasoline. |
| UltraOrk | 17 Jun 2009 6:44 a.m. PST |
Mythbusters did just that: lighting the stream of gasoline with a cigarette; extinguished the cigarette on multiple attempts. |
| Grumpygamer | 17 Jun 2009 7:20 a.m. PST |
Im a career firefighter and Ill add that its the fumes (as in a mixture of fuel and air) that ignite, the liquid will absolutely simply extinguish a source of heat like any other liquid that covers and thereby removes oxygen from the reaction. HOWEVER – the heat source typically has to pass through the fumes to get to the liquid. That puddle you plan to put your cigarette out in is giving up vapors that your ciggy may just ignite. Once it does, the overall heat to the liquid is increased, which in turn gives off more vapors to ignite.. etc etc, sustained combustion. Yeah, yeah, you didnt want all that but there it is, for whats its worth. LOL |
| Eclectic Wave | 17 Jun 2009 9:15 a.m. PST |
Having watched some bozo with a lit cigerette catch his car on fire at a gasoline station, and procede to destroy not only his car, but that half of the station, I can say it DOES HAPPEN. Gas fumes can be very flammable. The really amazing part was that the guy yanked the hose out of his car while still holding the handle down on the hose, spraying gasoline all over his burning vehicle. Smart. |
| Tankrider | 17 Jun 2009 7:39 p.m. PST |
"I'M HIDING BEHIND GASOLINE!! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Bless Dom Deluise's soul.. one of the funniest scenes in movie history. |
| Bunkermeister | 17 Jun 2009 10:22 p.m. PST |
It reminds me of a police officer who advised when on duty, in uniform, standing in line at the 7-Eleven store, when the robbers enter with guns, don't take cover behind the wire bread rack. He did when it happened to him. It did not work out as well as he had hoped. Mike "Bunkermeister" Creek
sgtsays.blogspot.com |
| Martin Rapier | 18 Jun 2009 2:11 a.m. PST |
"Takes a lot to ignite gasoline." Yea right. When I was a kid we used to start bonfires with a slug of petrol if the wood was wet or whatever. Until one day when I just just a bit slow getting the match lit and the fuel had mostly vapourised by the time it hit the fire. Cue explosion and bits of wood raining down all over the garden. Never did that a again. |
| Ditto Tango 2 1 | 18 Jun 2009 6:51 a.m. PST |
A single shot or even a number of shots will not set petrol ablaze. Not even tracer rounds will do that. Anything else is a Hollywood myth! I don't know. When my troop (platoon) was putting on a gun fire demonstration for Princess Anne (this was 1987), we had an old 2-1/2 ton truck on the firing range at about 300 meters for her to shoot at. We had buckets of gasoline inside it so that it would make a cool ka-boom for the 100s of press that were behind the firing line and reporting on the visit. Guy Fawkes night (which we celebrate here with all kinds of arson) here is a lovely example of how volatile gasoline can be.
--
Tim |
finally begins Vietnam.
