When firefighters have to enter a burning building, much of their job still involves blindly feeling their way through dense plumes of toxic fumes in search of those trapped inside. However, a novel new helmet design could one day give firefighters the ability to see through the smoke and hear beyond the roar of the flames.
The five-alarm fire that destroyed a San Francisco apartment building this week put the city’s municipal water supply to the test: When water pressure began to dwindle, firefighters tapped an emergency system that was built below the city—all the way back in 1913.
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It makes perfect sense. Burning buildings are very dangerous places for people to enter, so when there’s a fire that needs to be put out, why not recruit robots to do the dirty work?
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Need to put out a forest fire? Why not bomb it with chemical-filled missiles? At least that was the plan in 1961.
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As of this morning, the Rim Fire burning through Yosemite National Park has scorched 237,341 acres—roughly 370 square miles—since it caught on August 17th, presumably from an illegal marijuana grow operation. Firefighters from across the state and country have been battling the blaze nonstop and currently have the fire 75 percent contained. Crews credit better, wetter conditions for making the containment gains easier. But it’s their equipment that makes it even possible in the first place.
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