Seems two people tried to ride out the California wildfires by sitting in a hot tub instead of evacuating like they were asked to do. It didn't work nearly as well as they had hoped.

Link

-Blast

A similar situation occurred in the WW2 bombings of both Hamburg, when people climbed into limited amounts of water ahead of the advancing wall of fire. Fountains in Hamburg and water barrels in Tokyo provided only fleeting protection. Once the water heated up it made the situation far worse.

The result was pretty much the same in both cases ... soup. Not a pleasant way to go.

People can survive exposure to higher temperatures longer if the air is dry. Steam and hot water are far more efficient at transmitting heat to skin than hot dry air.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I mean, c'mon, we cook shellfish this way.

Nevermind skin - they planned to breath, right? I always thought lungs were more easily damaged by heat than skin if you had to take a breath at the wrong moment...

It certainly would be interesting to have a way to play back a person's though processes at a time like that. Now THAT would make a really entertaining TV series!

California... redwood hot tub... relatively small amount of water... It kind of sounds like the cooking pot in one of those cannibal cartoons.

I wonder if those two will receive Darwin Award nominations?

"Breathe? We have to breathe?"

the stupidity of people never fails to amaze me.

Apparently, they're alive and medium-well...

Nah, they're both still in the gene pool, thus disqualified.

Hopefully they learned something. And not "We need a bigger hot tub!"

And the award for the most tasteless (and therefor funniest) joke goes to Uncle Groo.

-Blast: sick, twisted, and (currently) highly medicated

You just can't fix stupid!

So, I am going to assume neither of them ever made soup? Well, other than that one time, they were sitting in the hot tub...


I have to wonder at what point they figured out their plan wasnt working?

"I have to wonder at what point they figured out their plan wasnt working?"

Probably at the gasping and painful stage.

Haha that is ridiculous.

Okay, not evacuating was bad decision one. Thinking the hot tub would be safe was bad decision two. They paid the price so I say let's consider them rehabilitated and not pound on them anymore.

So assuming you find yourself facing a wildfire that has you trapped, what are your best survival strategies? (Assume you have whatever your standard hiking and camping gear may be but cannot get back to your vehicle.)

The problem is that most people do not understand the radiant heat a fire puts off. This is what causes homes and other items to BURST into flames once a spark hits them.

They are lucky that their faces did not melt off.

Some Info:
http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/documents/radiantheat_brochure.pdf

http://science.howstuffworks.com/wildfire.htm/printable

And the fact that, in the middle of one, the oxygen is being consumed by the fire....leaving very little for you!!! And, as stated...the air is superheated...

Damn ... and I thought I was going to win with my "soup" comment. ETS is a tough audience. I will have to up my game ... and lower my standards.

I can't claim that as my own: I heard it as a Joan of Arc joke, probably forty years ago. God only knows how old it was even then.

Goo.

You were too subtle. I noticed, though, if that helps any.

So, what happened to those five people who were trapped by the fire and suddenly decided they needed rescuing a little too late?

They survived. Actually, it was just reported.

So they refused to evacuate, then asked to be rescued as the flames approached but it was too dangerous to reach them. And then they said that they didn't need to be rescued after that! Crazy...