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Little-Known Facts About the LA Wildfires
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Feb 27, 2025
āļø SUBSCRIBE to my FREE weekly newsletter: https://askthebuilder.com/newsletter/ āļø DIY Phone Coaching HELPLINE: https://shop.askthebuilder.com/15-min... š COMPARE BIDS: https://shop.askthebuilder.com/produc... š¤ SECRET TIP to Add 40 Years to Your Roof: https://www.askthebuilder.com/asphalt... š Deluxe Two-Story Shed Plans: https://shop.askthebuilder.com/deluxe... This description may contain affiliate links. The companies you purchase from pay me a tiny commission for introducing you to them. Tim Carter shares some things you might not know about fighting fires.
View Video Transcript
0:00
asked the Builder and I just wanted to
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try this live feed uh it's my first time
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doing a vertical live and I wanted to
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talk a little bit
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about some things you might not know
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about the horrible wildfires and
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fighting these fires out in Los Angeles
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um it might be really helpful
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information for you when you discuss it
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with other people or you see some things
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online where people are criticizing um
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firefighters and politicians and
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whatever and I I can I I was a builder
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for 20 plus years uh firefighting has
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always been a hobby of mine and the
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here's the step one that you need to
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know if you've never been out to the Los
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Angeles area and I've been out there
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many many times I have a lot of friends
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and I even family out there now it's a
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huge area it's I I can't begin to tell
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you how big it is the the the Los
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Angeles Basin uh and some of the other
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valleys like the San Fernando Valley I
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mean it's 60 70 80 Mi long it's huge all
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right it's a big area and the mountains
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there are very very steep um that that
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are you know back that are north of the
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of the
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Basin I mean you can go here onto
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YouTube if you want to see how steep
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they are quite a few years ago I did a
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really kind of interesting video uh
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called the history of the cob salads go
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go watch that video we were actually on
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a hike
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uh going up to uh uh you know uh on on
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these mountains and it was very steep
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very hard all right so I couldn't even
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imagine trying to drag a fire hose up or
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down one of those Hills
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anyway here's what you need to know
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about fighting a fire number one um if
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you live in a city like I used to live
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in Cincinnati
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Ohio the let's just talk about an
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average house fire like just say a house
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catches on fire could be a kitchen fire
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it could be a pretty significant fire
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that first alarm that comes out it's
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usually somewhere between three and five
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fire trucks and there might be three or
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four guys on each truck uh you know men
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and women all right so here you've got
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somewhere between 12 and 20 people
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fighting the fire and that's all it
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really takes all right that if they know
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what they're doing and and you know
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whatever they get the fire out all right
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so the let's talk about the the uh eaten
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fire uh I had friends of mine who they
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lost their home in the eaten fire and
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I've been to their home several times um
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it's in
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Altadena and in their subdivision they
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were up above the jet propulsion lab and
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their area uh they have 271 houses in
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the subdivision and 53 of them were on
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fire all right so 53 houses at one time
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and
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you know you might need three to five
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trucks per house so you can do the math
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all right so we're we're up we're up
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near 200 fire trucks there's not 200
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fire trucks in Altadena and not only
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that um the rest of allena was on fire
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too all right so and there's a thing
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called Mutual Aid in other words as soon
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as there's a big fire like this what
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happens is all the other departments you
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know that are near altta dnf or near the
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Palisades or whatever they get called in
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all right so um but but the trouble is
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is that you've you you've got you you
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remember you need three to five trucks
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per house all right so it's unrealistic
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for anyone to think that even if you had
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all the fire trucks operating out there
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that they could put out these fires
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that's not realistic the second thing
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I'm a master
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plumber I don't hear hardly any of this
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being discussed online at all I don't
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see any articles about this uh this is
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really important you need to understand
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that the the water lines the water mans
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that are buried underground that's that
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produce water and Supply water to the
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fire hydrants are the same exact water
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mains that are used to supply water to
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the homes and businesses all right and
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then a typical subdivision uh like my
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friends they might have an 8 in water
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man you know under the pavement all
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right right uh that's a pretty big pipe
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8 in pipe and you know and it might have
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a pressure in it of um I don't know
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um I see a comment I'll I'll check that
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in just a second uh sure yeah I can
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absolutely tell you about that about
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that that question I'll get to that in a
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moment
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um the um
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uh these Municipal Water
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Systems they can handle maybe one or two
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like in my buddy's subdivision 271
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houses if three understand that a
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typical fire engine can can pump 1,500
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gallons per minute all right that's a
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lot of water all right so you can't
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expect a water system to have 50 trucks
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hook up to it and and everybody get
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water even if they have the water in the
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reservoirs even if they have water and
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tanks up above my buddy's
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subdivision the system can't it can't
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Supply that much water
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so you've got to keep that in mind when
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you discuss this with people when they
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talk about running out of water of
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course they can run out of water
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absolutely it can happen all right for a
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number of reasons but I just want you to
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know that the municipal system at your
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home in your city or your town if you
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have a water man out in the street it
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can handle one or two or three trucks
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hooking up to it maybe four uh but you
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can't have 50 all right now when you get
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into to the inner city the fire hydrants
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and inner cities they connect to much
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bigger pipes all right but that's not
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the case in all these residential
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streets all right so just I just want
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you to understand that that that don't
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don't raise your expectations about how
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easy it would be to fight these fires
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all right and then now let's add to it
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the wind all right so here's the uh
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here's a chat uh it says give us your
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thoughts about why all homes burnt to
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the dust including Granite stainless Ste
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vehicle engine blocks but no trees burnt
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when will they talk about the truth
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going on here okay so that's a really
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interesting question uh if you here's
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what's going on with the
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trees
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so I got photos I'm going to actually
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create a new video that I'm probably
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going to upload tomorrow to my ask the
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Builder Channel that's going to show you
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my friend's home and the trees right
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next to it and they're all charred the
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trees are gone the vegetation is gone
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but the tree it's self did not burn all
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right now um it's on the edge of the
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fire you got to keep that in mind all
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right so understand that the trees on
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the edge of the fire the reason the
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trees don't burn is because the trees
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have water in them all right and if
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you've ever tried to start a fire before
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if you've ever gone to a camp out or
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whatever uh you cannot um you have a big
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big trouble trying to burn wet wood and
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the reason you have that trouble is for
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the wood to burn
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you need to you need to boil off all of
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the water in in that tree all right and
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um that would happen if you threw the
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tree inside the burning house or the
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burning buildings but when the trees are
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on the outskirts of the fire it's hot
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there but it's not hot enough to do that
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or it's not hot enough long enough to do
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that so that's that's what those the
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Dynamics of that burning of that wood so
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uh but you already know that wood burns
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really rapidly when it's dry because all
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of the houses they're being consumed
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with with that 60 70 80 m per hour wind
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blowing on them it's like starting a
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fire in your own yard if you've never
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done this before it's really kind of an
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interesting experiment I mean I I don't
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want you to do it if the conditions are
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dangerous but go start a campfire and if
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you have a portable electric powered
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leaf blower or gasoline powered aim the
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leaf blower at it you know because those
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or stand back 10 ft and by the time the
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air gets to the fire it'll probably be
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50 or 60 miles per hour you'll see how
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hot that Fire gets it's the same exact
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effect that when you go to an old
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Blackness Forge and they have the
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Bellows and when they blow air you know
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they're they're pumping that Bellows and
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they're blowing air into that fire
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that's what gets that fire so flipping
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hot that it can get steel on fire same
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thing go here on YouTube go watch any
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blacksmith videos where an Old
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Blacksmith is using a Bellows and they
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can actually get that fire inside the
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forge hot enough to melt the steel all
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right so that's why that's happening
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with the stainless steel the vehicle
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engine blocks um you can easily do that
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as long as you have the wind blowing you
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need to have the wind going so that's
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really kind of it that's all I really
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want to share with you um there's going
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to be a there's going to we're still
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early in this whole process right so if
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you'll notice with all of these
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um any news story you know here it's
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it's what it's Tuesday it's only been a
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week it was just a week ago that the
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fire started all right
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so as we go down the timeline we're
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going to get more facts and we're going
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to learn more well hopefully we will
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hopefully we'll be able to uncover the
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truth of what really happened uh my
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biggest question is it seems to me that
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the fires the three major fires the
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Palisades the eaten fire and I can't
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remember the name of the other one but
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they all seem to have started at the
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same time and and I have a problem with
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that I I don't think that that was a
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coincidence I think that would be very
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unlikely so I'm a little worried about
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that so anyway um I plan to do a lot
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more of these uh streaming verticals uh
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I'm glad you liked it if you uh uh want
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to learn more from me go to the askthe
10:16
builder website askthe builder.com sign
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up for my newsletter and um thanks for
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watching and um thanks for your uh th
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driver thanks so much for that question
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that was a really good really really
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good question but it's be those trees
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didn't burn because they were they
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couldn't get hot enough to boil off all
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the water that's inside the tree that's
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what's going on all right thanks very
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much I'm Tim Carter ask the Builder
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