Happy birthday, firehouse pole.
posted on Apr 21, 2008 - View this thread

The Burning Crater of Darvaza. [Via.]
posted on Mar 26, 2008 - View this thread

Weird scenes inside the gold mica mines Russians photograph and play in an abandoned mine.
posted on Mar 21, 2008 - View this thread

"To suppose that the spirit of our people will not rise to the occasion is to suppose that our people are not genuine Americans. We shall make the fire of 1904 a landmark not of decline but of progress."
posted on Mar 21, 2008 - View this thread

It's never a happy occasion when a 130 year old brick building goes up in flames. But when the fire crews have to spray down the building (and the surrounding city block) in sub-zero temperatures, the end result looks stunning.
posted on Feb 21, 2008 - View this thread

Larry Schwarm is best known for his photographs of prairie fires and landscapes in the Flint Hills of Kansas. On May 5, 2007, he visited his hometown of Greensburg, Kansas to take photos of what was left after an F-5 tornado leveled the town the day before.
posted on Jan 18, 2008 - View this thread

I watched man burn to death, heard others screaming in the fog. A massive, 50-car pileup, the result of three or more crashes on I-4, has led to at least 3 fatalities and 82 injuries in central Florida near Orlando. The smoke and fog were so bad that rescue efforts were hindered. Drivers with no visibility did not know whether to stay in their burning cars or risk running out onto the highway for help.
posted on Jan 9, 2008 - View this thread

Scoutmaster is a blog from a long-time troop leader in which he talks both about practical scouting tools, such as how to make a fire and how to lash a tower together, and about current issues with discrimination in the BSA.
posted on Dec 19, 2007 - View this thread

The Flaming Lotus Girls are a San Francisco-based fire art collective. Their recent works have included The Serpent Mother (pics | video); the Angel of the Apocalypse (pics ); and the Hand of God (pics | video). Another bay area fire arts group is Interpretive Arson, creators of Dance Dance Immolation (previously featured), and the interactive 2pir (video).
posted on Nov 16, 2007 - View this thread

The great Seattle Fire. "The spring of 1889 in Seattle had been beautiful....Unfortunately, the unusually good weather proved to be disastrous, as the dry conditions conspired with a handful of other elements to allow for the worst fire in city history...the fire burned until 3:00 am. When it was done, the damage was enormous. 120 acres (25 city blocks) had been destroyed, as was every wharf and Mill from Union to Jackson Streets. Although the loss of human life was evidently low (no statistics were kept on that) it was estimated that 1 million rats were killed...." Photo gallery. A roughly contemporaneous account. A Historylink essay on the fire. How the fire changed Seattle's architecture.
posted on Nov 7, 2007 - View this thread

Pictures of California Wildfires. Some fire resources: Fire maps, Official Information and an up to the moment news blog. In related news, Twitter proves to be useful, while anger rages as evidence of arson mounts. More Photos here and here.
posted on Oct 28, 2007 - View this thread

In Chapter 3 of his 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning book The Control of Nature, John Mcphee describes the catastrophe from debris flows following wild fires in the Los Angeles area in 1978.
posted on Oct 23, 2007 - View this thread

How to build and start a fire. How to build and start a fire with stone age tools. How to start a fire in an emergency. How to start a fire without matches. How to start a fire with sticks. How to start a fire with air - and possibly inspire the birth of the diesel engine. How to start a fire with ice. How to start a fire with chocolate and a coke can.
posted on Jun 11, 2007 - View this thread

The Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory compiles a fascinating array of primary sources about the 1871 fire that destroyed 4 square miles of the city of Chicago, killing hundreds and leaving nearly one out of five residents homeless. Explore 3D images, music [embedded], children's drawings, and personal recollections. See also a pictorial survey of the damage, including fused marbles and metal hardware, related documents and images at the Library of Congress, and an exoneration of Mrs. O'Leary and her bovine companion, along with a suggestion by John Lienhart that police corruption and class struggle were more to blame than a cow [embedded audio].
posted on May 16, 2007 - View this thread

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is burning (again). Over the past few days, more than 22,000 acres have burned, and a mandatory evacuation has been ordered for the north end of the Gunflint Trail. Fire containment remains at only 5%, and the fire's growth potential remains high due to strong winds, lack of rainfall, and the dense concentration of blown-down trees caused by a major windstorm in 1999. Officials are now attempting to fight fire with fire. Fire danger is high to extreme across northern Minnesota and fire restrictions are in effect indefinitely. The BWCAW previously.
posted on May 10, 2007 - View this thread

The Beltane Fire Society Fire Festival. Happy Beltane! [Some links NSFW.]
posted on Apr 30, 2007 - View this thread

Melted Freeway
posted on Apr 29, 2007 - View this thread

Live, From Outer Space: rural fires [1, 2], The Haze in China [1 ,2, 3] and its movement, aerosols, and the brothers carbon monoxide [a photochemical smog agent] and carbon dioxide.
posted on Apr 14, 2007 - View this thread

Let me stand next to your fire. Forty years ago today, Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar live on stage for the first time when he was appearing at The Astoria London. It was the first night of a 24-date tour with The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and Engelbert Humperdinck.
posted on Mar 31, 2007 - View this thread

Burn Hollywood Burn. Some striking photos (from the BBC) of the conflagration that came a little too close for comfort to the iconic hillside sign. Some more details here.
posted on Mar 31, 2007 - View this thread

The Fireladders of Soho. (New York, that is.) [via]
posted on Mar 20, 2007 - View this thread

Requiem for La Contessa: After she was set afire in December, three questions arose: who burned her, why, and what became of her figurehead? The first two have been answered, but the third remains a mystery despite the sculpture's brief appearance in a photo on tribe.net.
posted on Feb 3, 2007 - View this thread

Tickle Me Elmo On Fire (google video, disturbing)
posted on Jan 2, 2007 - View this thread

Welcome (well, almost, the roman calendar is a touch early) to the Year of the Fire Pig. See what it means for you as we finish the Fire Dog Year.
posted on Jan 1, 2007 - View this thread

The La Contessa, the Spanish galleon that roamed Lake Lahontan, is gone.
posted on Dec 11, 2006 - View this thread

City in Flames Twenty Five years ago the City of Lynn Massachusetts experienced its second great fire. Devastating several downtown industrial buildings dating to the rise of the Shoe industry. All of which were undergoing redevelopment. While nowhere near as big as the Great Boston Fire of 1872, or the various Chelsea fires, the tragedy of the story is the empty wasteland that still sits after all these years. Today the Boston Globe dug up several articles from their pre Web vaults. The Lynn Museum has an exhibit, and the Lynn Library will have a slideshow.
posted on Nov 28, 2006 - View this thread

Maybe it's not really news because no one was killed, but you'd think that more people would notice when a massive explosion in suburban Boston totals 60 buildings, knocks out windows for a half mile around, knocks people out of bed in the middle of the night, and registers on the Richter scale 30 miles away.
posted on Nov 22, 2006 - View this thread

A man set himself on fire in Chicago last Friday morning in protest at the war in Iraq. He left a suicide note. But you know that don't you because its been all over the media?
posted on Nov 8, 2006 - View this thread

The Incinolet (possible product name: The Crap Zapper!) is a waterless toilet which, according to its fans, is cleaner, less expensive, and more eco-friendly than its counterparts because it uses fire instead of water.
posted on Sep 15, 2006 - View this thread

Troitsky Church in St.Petersburg is on fire. Terrible pictures
posted on Aug 25, 2006 - View this thread

Due to recent fires, Dell is recalling over four million laptop batteries manufactured by Sony and sold worldwide in the past two years. Pictures of computers on fire (as well as their charred remains) circulated widely online, not allowing the company to easily dismiss the problem as an isolated incident. Other companies claim their products aren't affected by the same issues, but the nightmare might not be limited to Dell. The future of laptops on airplanes is not looking so good.
posted on Aug 15, 2006 - View this thread

Free piano, slight fire damage.
posted on Aug 13, 2006 - View this thread

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the operating room: surgical fires. Virtually all operating room fires ignite on or in the patient. These fires typically result in little damage to equipment, cause considerable injury to patients, and are a complete surprise to the staff.
posted on Jul 29, 2006 - View this thread

The Cavity Lake Fire: On July 14th of this year a lightning strike in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (previous posts) started a wildfire that has so far burned over 30,000 acres, the biggest fire in the area since 1894. A large reason for the size of this fire is the 1999 blowdown of 400,000 acres of forests, that's 600 square miles of dead wood waiting to burn. Short video of firefighters creating a buffer zone, blogger's pics and comments on the aftermath in an area that was just reopened. Five photo galleries of related images: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5. This is my favorite pic to date, that is the smoke plume from this fire.
posted on Jul 25, 2006 - View this thread

This is what happens when you put on a banana suit, soak yourself in accelerant, and light yourself on fire.
posted on Jul 22, 2006 - View this thread

Much of the United States currently in a heat wave. First half of 2006 warmest on record in US - Global Warming fuels U.S. forest fires. Global Warming is not going away.
posted on Jul 15, 2006 - View this thread

Job? Fuck it. from Packard Jennings. Also, A Day At The Mall. (Mildly NSFW due to cartoon nudity and copulation. But, screw it, y'know? via.)
posted on Jul 11, 2006 - View this thread

At approximately 9:20 PM (ET) on January 6th, David E. Rosenbaum, a longtime reporter for the Washington bureau of the New York Times, was found lying on a sidewalk in Washington, DC. He was disoriented. He was bleeding from the head. He was vomiting. And, as it turned out, he had been assaulted and robbed. [more inside]
posted on Jun 20, 2006 - View this thread

Art teacher in hot water over topless photos - Meet Tamara, a 29 year old art teacher at Austin High School (notable alumni) in Austin, TX. She's in danger of losing her job with the Austin independent School District over inappropriate photos posted to her Flickr account (may be NSFW). "I'm an artist and I'm going to participate in the arts," Hoover said. "If that's not something they want me to do then I want to be told that. I don't feel as if I was doing anything that was beyond expectations."
posted on Jun 17, 2006 - View this thread

October 20, 1991 - the Oakland Hills weathered a massive firestorm, destroying almost 2,500 homes and taking 25 lives. For many years, it remained the biggest urban disaster in US history.
posted on Apr 14, 2006 - View this thread

Firefighters.
posted on Apr 10, 2006 - View this thread

Celebrate the most underappreciated holiday of the year! February 1st is St. Brigid's Day or Imbolc or Candlemas. St. Brigid of Ireland, the woman who some make a good case that she should be the Patron Saint of Ireland before Patrick. Others say she was the pre-Christian fertility or fire goddess of the Celts and that the Catholic Church co-opted her day as they did with many pagan pre-Christian holidays. Whether one celebrates Candlemas as a Catholic holy day or as a one of the Pagan cross-quarter days, it is also the Festival of Lights. Regardless, I have loved February 1st and 2nd since college as Groundhog Day is the most whimsical holiday of the year, thankfully it does not have a 2 month retail buying season building up to it. Tomorrow, I shall take a photo to Puxsutawney Phil to St. Brigid's Well in Kildare to celebrate properly.
posted on Feb 1, 2006 - View this thread

"I didn't know Jack London was such a good photographer." Jack London and his wife Charmian took photos several hours after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, and he wrote an eyewitness account for Collier's (it was the most he was ever paid per word--25 cents--for his writing). [more inside]
posted on Jan 6, 2006 - View this thread

A last minute gift to really get the Yule fires burning. Trouble starting fires? Need help with that oh so seasonal roaring log on which to roast your chestnuts? Why not use the President? (warning: immediate sound, jerky movement, nsf republicans)
posted on Dec 24, 2005 - View this thread

One dry scotch pine tree, plus one string of old christmas lights, has the potential to add up to a really bad day. [qt] This can happen after a tree has been drying for three weeks or so. [pdf] So please - keep them watered!
posted on Nov 30, 2005 - View this thread

The Tar Barrels of Ottery St Mary.
posted on Nov 5, 2005 - View this thread

Photos before the show starts Yakutat AK; Portland, OR; San Diego, CA; L.A; Cleveland, OH.
posted on Oct 30, 2005 - View this thread

Classic Aardman (of Wallace and Gromit fame) animation stuff up in flames
posted on Oct 11, 2005 - View this thread

Monkey Dude. Fast paced is an understatement.
Be sure to also check out Streets of Fire for the catchiest soundtrack ever, and Rambo III to relive the glory that was Sylvester Stallone stickfighting.
Some Friday Flash Fun
posted on Oct 7, 2005 - View this thread

Today in Delta BC, a city within the GVRD, a fire burns out of control. The largest raised peat bog (over 10,000 acres) in western North America, Burns Bog is sending smoke and ash across the area. Major blazes occurred in 1977, 1990, 1994 and 1996. The 1996 fire covered Greater Vancouver in smoke and ash for two days, destroying 170 hectares. Smaller fires have burned for months in underground methane. However, there are other risks to the "Lungs of Vancouver", including a proposed theme park.
posted on Sep 12, 2005 - View this thread