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How Fire Breathing Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant and this is stuff you should
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Speaker 1: Know too. Hot addition, this is an addition to our
0:25
Speaker 1: long standing circus arts suite. What else have we done then?
0:29
Speaker 1: Human cannonball? Sure, we've done lion taming. Yeah, lion taming, Goodwin,
0:36
Speaker 1: or animal tamming in general? Maybe I think it was
0:38
Speaker 1: called um that there seems to be like a couple more. Yeah,
0:44
Speaker 1: maybe to we do the you know that sphere that
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Speaker 1: the motorcycle guys right in the what did they call
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Speaker 1: that thing? The probably the cage of death because it's
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Speaker 1: the most dangerous thing ever. It's a pretty dangerous. Yeah,
1:00
Speaker 1: Gosling did it though in that movie? Did he actually
1:03
Speaker 1: do it? Okay? Of course not what movie was that? Um?
1:07
Speaker 1: Pines one? Yeah, place beyond the pines, among the pines,
1:10
Speaker 1: beside the pines around the pines has something to do
1:13
Speaker 1: with the pines, had a pine smell to it. Yeah,
1:15
Speaker 1: that was a great opening shot, though, I have to say, Oh,
1:17
Speaker 1: is that I haven't seen that movie. It's this long,
1:19
Speaker 1: continuous shot that eventually takes him from like his trailer
1:22
Speaker 1: into that sphere of death. Well, now the whole movie
1:25
Speaker 1: spoil You might as well tell everybody what the what
1:27
Speaker 1: the final final part of the plot is. They called
1:31
Speaker 1: the Daniu Mall resolution. Yeah, the last act called Daniu
1:36
Speaker 1: Mall Frenchie. All right. Circus Arts continued with fire breathing.
1:42
Speaker 1: I just did it? Did you see that, Chuck or
1:44
Speaker 1: what are some of the other names, because breathing is
1:46
Speaker 1: technically kind of a weird thing to call it. The
1:49
Speaker 1: fire blowing is the one fire aspirating, And apparently I
1:53
Speaker 1: read something on how some somepoi dot com, which is
1:57
Speaker 1: basically a fire arts website. Um, they were saying, like,
2:01
Speaker 1: there's two there's a medical term for aspirating, which is
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Speaker 1: to introduce air into the lungs, and they wanted to
2:07
Speaker 1: go out of their way to point out that that's
2:08
Speaker 1: not what they were talking about when they call it asperating.
2:11
Speaker 1: They were using the other definition, which is, uh, exhaling,
2:15
Speaker 1: a missed vaporous missed. So aspiating is probably the best
2:20
Speaker 1: term technically for it, but everybody calls it fire breathing. Yeah,
2:23
Speaker 1: because a circus, uh what do they call the people
2:26
Speaker 1: that yell a barker, isn't gonna say step right up
2:29
Speaker 1: and see the fire aspirator. Yeah, they may have. Some
2:32
Speaker 1: of those old timing circus barkers were like they were
2:35
Speaker 1: into big words fire aspiration. You'd have to say it
2:38
Speaker 1: like that, exactly, like Walter Winstel exactly. For some reason.
2:43
Speaker 1: Uh chuck, Yes, have you ever seen somebody breath fire?
2:46
Speaker 1: Sure you have in real life? Yeah, okay, yeah, like
2:51
Speaker 1: the smaller circuses lollapalooza. Well, well I did see the
2:56
Speaker 1: gym Row show. Do they have a fire breath? Then?
2:59
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Just remember the guy that hung from
3:01
Speaker 1: needles through his and I remember dudes eating glass and stuff.
3:07
Speaker 1: But there had to be a fire breather in there. Well,
3:09
Speaker 1: apparently that was around the time of the fire breathing Revival.
3:12
Speaker 1: There was a They think that it's possible people were
3:15
Speaker 1: fire breathing back in ancient Persia. Apparently that's where naphtha
3:20
Speaker 1: was um discovered, which we'll talk about um and the
3:27
Speaker 1: fire breathing as we know it probably came about around
3:30
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, around the time when circuses started, as
3:34
Speaker 1: we understand them, medieval traveling players gave way to traveling circuses,
3:39
Speaker 1: which gave way to right uh, and then it just
3:43
Speaker 1: kind of died off for a little while until a
3:46
Speaker 1: little known guy named Gene Simmons started doing it at
3:51
Speaker 1: shows for the band called k I S S. Yes,
3:55
Speaker 1: what is it stand for? Nights in Satan's Service? That's
3:59
Speaker 1: not a rumor? Is a rumor? Yeah? That's not true?
4:02
Speaker 1: At are you getting me there? Like they just want
4:04
Speaker 1: to party to Jewish guys from New York that or makeup.
4:07
Speaker 1: So yeah, Jean Simmons used to do it on stage
4:09
Speaker 1: at Kiss shows. I didn't know that, did you that
4:13
Speaker 1: he did that? And say, oh yeah, that was a
4:15
Speaker 1: big trick. So you've been in a Kiss tribute band before?
4:20
Speaker 1: Did we dressed up as Kiss for a Halloween concert?
4:26
Speaker 1: That we did the same thing. We did not play
4:28
Speaker 1: a single Kiss song though, Oh gotcha, because they're kind
4:30
Speaker 1: of crappy. Well, did Dan go in brief fire? I
4:34
Speaker 1: should have. I should have had the blood capsules too,
4:36
Speaker 1: you know. So Gene Simmons taught a guy who was
4:40
Speaker 1: in a tribute band called Black Diamond Um how to
4:43
Speaker 1: breathe fire, so he could do a better tribute act.
4:46
Speaker 1: And that guy eventually started this whole well, he kind
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Speaker 1: of introduced fire breathing to the whole urban tribalism raver
4:54
Speaker 1: goth culture, and then there you have it. Now, now
4:58
Speaker 1: we have fire breathing. Jeans Emmons is responsible for the
5:01
Speaker 1: resurgence in the nineteen seventies and fire breathing pretty much
5:03
Speaker 1: all right. So, um, if Gene Simmons can do what
5:07
Speaker 1: you say, anybody can do it, and you're pretty much right.
5:11
Speaker 1: But the thing is that it takes a certain kind
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Speaker 1: of person to breathe fire. And with that, I feel
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Speaker 1: like we should see away here, like this is fire breathing.
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Speaker 1: So there's actually stuff called fire arts. It is a
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Speaker 1: subsection of the circus arts, and it's basically anything dangerous
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Speaker 1: to do with fire, juggling, breathing, eating, eating, anything you
5:33
Speaker 1: can do with fire is pretty dangerous. Fire breathing is
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Speaker 1: far and away the most dangerous of the fire arts.
5:41
Speaker 1: It is extraordinarily dangerous. It is you could say, extremely
5:45
Speaker 1: dumb to do. And I used to think that when
5:49
Speaker 1: I saw it, I was like I could do that.
5:50
Speaker 1: You know, you just put it in your mouth and
5:52
Speaker 1: you just blow the fine mist just spit it out.
5:54
Speaker 1: But that's you will end up burned and disfigured if
5:59
Speaker 1: you just try that on a whim, which we'll get into. UM.
6:02
Speaker 1: I was reading an article by Pendult about fire eating,
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Speaker 1: and the whole time he was talking about you know
6:09
Speaker 1: how dumb it was, and don't do it, but then
6:10
Speaker 1: he's giving a step by step which is what we're
6:12
Speaker 1: gonna do kind of um. But he was saying that
6:17
Speaker 1: fire eating and fire breathing, any of the fire arts
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Speaker 1: are one of those rare things where even if you
6:22
Speaker 1: do it right, you're still going to get hurt, if
6:25
Speaker 1: you're not gonna come away unscathed. And in addition to
6:28
Speaker 1: the immediate problems you're gonna have, you can have long
6:30
Speaker 1: term problems, which we'll get into as well. But we
6:33
Speaker 1: should say that just from the outset, people who are
6:36
Speaker 1: fire breathers typically won't teach you how to do it
6:40
Speaker 1: if you ask them to, and they will also tell
6:42
Speaker 1: you don't listen to podcasts, don't read magazines, don't read books,
6:47
Speaker 1: don't go to websites, like, all of those things have problems,
6:51
Speaker 1: and you if you really do want to learn how
6:53
Speaker 1: to breathe fire, then go find somebody who does this
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Speaker 1: and has done it for years and knows what they're doing,
6:59
Speaker 1: and ask if they will teach you how to do it.
7:01
Speaker 1: That's the only way you can possibly even remotely safely
7:05
Speaker 1: learn how to breathe fire. That's right. And for this article, um,
7:09
Speaker 1: who wrote this? Uh, this is a Tracy Wilson jam
7:12
Speaker 1: Well you know it's thorough, but um, she interviewed a
7:16
Speaker 1: couple of professional fire breathers, Mike Garner and a lady
7:21
Speaker 1: with the stage name of Pelee, And so we're gonna
7:24
Speaker 1: be quoting from them and a lot of this is
7:26
Speaker 1: their expertise on the page. So we just want to
7:28
Speaker 1: shout out to them. Yeah. I don't know if they're
7:30
Speaker 1: still doing this, but um a bit they are, Like
7:35
Speaker 1: who hangs up their boots their spurs If you're a
7:38
Speaker 1: fire breather, I think when your mouth falls out. Well
7:41
Speaker 1: they've both been hurt. Yeah, all right, so let's get
7:43
Speaker 1: into it, all right. So, um, with fire breathing, Uh,
7:47
Speaker 1: you've got basically two things that you need. You need
7:52
Speaker 1: a fuel source and a flame source and a mouth. Yeah,
7:56
Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. Yeah, you don't even take thickly
8:00
Speaker 1: need a hand you could use some sort of robotic
8:03
Speaker 1: arm to hold your flame source. So really you just
8:05
Speaker 1: need a mouth, a fuel source, and a flame. Um.
8:10
Speaker 1: And like you said, it's just you thought you could
8:13
Speaker 1: just do that. You put a little fuel in your
8:15
Speaker 1: mouth and you spit it at the flame and you're fine.
8:17
Speaker 1: I was just gonna do a tiny bit too. Well,
8:20
Speaker 1: apparently that's all you want. You want about a shots worth. UM,
8:24
Speaker 1: so I already would have done too much, probably thinking
8:26
Speaker 1: it was little and I have a huge beard, which yeah,
8:29
Speaker 1: that's another big one to Some people say that you
8:32
Speaker 1: should do this, um unclothed from the waist up, just
8:35
Speaker 1: to prevent your shirt from catching on fire or whatever. Um.
8:39
Speaker 1: But the the the key to fire breathing, apparently is
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Speaker 1: the mist you produce. You don't want to the fuel
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Speaker 1: to be You want to kind of atomize the fuel
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Speaker 1: in your mouth with the spit. You want to create
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Speaker 1: this mist because if it's not misty enough, the fuel
8:55
Speaker 1: will be too heavy or catch fire and land on
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Speaker 1: the ground and just burn the grounds. Right And if um,
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Speaker 1: this is something that eventually you want to try and
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Speaker 1: do professionally, and you get hooked up with a professional
9:05
Speaker 1: and they're gonna give you lessons. They're not gonna hand
9:08
Speaker 1: you a cup of Colman fuel and say let's give
9:12
Speaker 1: this a try. They're gonna hand you a cup of
9:14
Speaker 1: water and then say we're gonna be getting this missed
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Speaker 1: correct and the angle correct for the next two years
9:21
Speaker 1: until you ever touch fuel to mouth. And uh, speaking
9:25
Speaker 1: of angle, that angle needs to be between sixty and
9:28
Speaker 1: eighty degrees because if it's too low might get on
9:32
Speaker 1: your body. It's too high, it might fall back onto
9:35
Speaker 1: your face. And that's that's really important angle. That's the
9:37
Speaker 1: angle of the miss coming out of your mouth in
9:40
Speaker 1: relation to the ground. Yeah, okay, is that confusing? Okay,
9:45
Speaker 1: They're like, what are you supposed to lay on a
9:46
Speaker 1: board at a certain angle? Uh? So the first thing
9:51
Speaker 1: you want to do, or the first thing the professionals do,
9:53
Speaker 1: is examine their surroundings. They gotta check the wind, of course,
9:57
Speaker 1: even if they're indoors um and Gardner says, uh. Actually,
10:03
Speaker 1: Pale says, to actually watch the flame on the torch
10:06
Speaker 1: is the best way to tell what the wind is doing. Yeah,
10:08
Speaker 1: but it can all change in a moment. Oh yeah,
10:10
Speaker 1: it definitely can. Win. Wind changes correct a direction and
10:14
Speaker 1: you're in trouble. Yeah. Um, you also want to This
10:18
Speaker 1: is not something you want to show up to. You
10:19
Speaker 1: just put the fuel in your mouth and blow into
10:21
Speaker 1: a flame. You want to do a little recon work first. Um,
10:25
Speaker 1: you want to make sure there's no power lines around
10:28
Speaker 1: where you're gonna be blowing fire. Um that you want
10:31
Speaker 1: to make sure that you know where the people are
10:33
Speaker 1: going to be and where they're not going to be.
10:35
Speaker 1: You want to know which direction you're standing, the wind direction,
10:38
Speaker 1: wind speed, all of that kind of stuff. Trees, Yeah, no,
10:41
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit nearby, that's right. Uh. And then once
10:45
Speaker 1: you've kind of got your your miss down, your angle
10:49
Speaker 1: of your head, and the knowledge that you don't want
10:51
Speaker 1: to blow fire toward power lines. H, it's time to
10:55
Speaker 1: investigate what kind of fuel to use. That's right. There
10:58
Speaker 1: are all kinds of fuels. Um. One thing that you
11:01
Speaker 1: want to always avoid is gasoline or just straight up alcohol.
11:08
Speaker 1: It's not safe. Yeah. Methyl alcohols are extremely toxic, and
11:13
Speaker 1: Pale points out ethyl alcohols can induce drunkenness. You do
11:17
Speaker 1: not want anything approaching drunkenness while you're You want to
11:20
Speaker 1: be a sober as a judge, A sober judge while
11:24
Speaker 1: you're while you're fire breathing. Yeah, And both those alcohols
11:27
Speaker 1: are very low um flash points to which makes them
11:30
Speaker 1: more dangerous. And here's why. So there's something called blowback. Um.
11:35
Speaker 1: If something has a low flash point, that means it
11:37
Speaker 1: ignites at a low temperature. Right, So if you're spitting
11:42
Speaker 1: fuel at a fire source of flame source, that fuel
11:46
Speaker 1: that's close to your mouth, if it has a low
11:48
Speaker 1: flash point, could conceivably catch fire. So the trail of
11:51
Speaker 1: fire can follow the path back to your mouth and
11:54
Speaker 1: then catch your mouth on fire while you have a
11:56
Speaker 1: mouthful of fuel. Yeah, like, uh, you know the trick
11:59
Speaker 1: that you also should never do, which is what the
12:01
Speaker 1: aerosol can and making that into a flame torch. I've
12:04
Speaker 1: seen it crawl back up towards the nozzle when someone
12:08
Speaker 1: else was doing it, and that's really dangerous. That's the
12:11
Speaker 1: same thing, same exact thing, right, But imagine you don't
12:14
Speaker 1: have a cap that closes a valve with your mouth
12:17
Speaker 1: and you have fuel all around your mouth from the
12:19
Speaker 1: little spittle miss that you've been making with it. It's
12:22
Speaker 1: a bad scene when blowback happens. And so to avoid that,
12:25
Speaker 1: you you I should say, fire breathers use um fuels.
12:29
Speaker 1: With high flash points. Yeah, so you want to look
12:32
Speaker 1: at your flash point. You want to look at the toxicity,
12:34
Speaker 1: even though most of these are going to be fairly
12:36
Speaker 1: toxic because you're putting this in your mouth. You know, Well,
12:39
Speaker 1: there actually is one that's non toxic that works. Corn
12:42
Speaker 1: starch y. Yeah. Apparently corn starch processing plants used to
12:46
Speaker 1: blow up in the nineteenth century a lot um. Do
12:49
Speaker 1: you remember that sugar plant blew up in Savannah? Well,
12:52
Speaker 1: a sugar plant blew up in Savannah, and it blew
12:54
Speaker 1: up because of sugar dust. Anything that's that small can explode,
12:59
Speaker 1: can not. So corn starch can as well. So it's
13:02
Speaker 1: non toxic. But the problem is if you get it
13:04
Speaker 1: into your lungs, then it can cause problems. But they
13:07
Speaker 1: actually use that professional fire. But I saw it on
13:09
Speaker 1: house some poy Yeah, ok, and hey they know what
13:14
Speaker 1: they're talking about. Love You said that like it was
13:16
Speaker 1: the National Archives or something, I mean, and pretty it
13:18
Speaker 1: pretty much is. It's the National Archives of fire breathing.
13:21
Speaker 1: Uh So the taste in the smell, you know, because
13:23
Speaker 1: like we said, you're gonna put this in your mouth
13:25
Speaker 1: and there's also going to be people around, and you
13:27
Speaker 1: don't want to you know, offend people with some malodorous,
13:31
Speaker 1: toxic fumes. You don't want all kinds of awful smoke, uh,
13:35
Speaker 1: and you want it to make a nice plain that
13:37
Speaker 1: has nice color and it's very visible. All this goes
13:40
Speaker 1: into choosing your fuel, that's right. Um. The fuel, The
13:44
Speaker 1: most prevalent fuel that I came across and researching is kerostene,
13:48
Speaker 1: which is also known as paraffin um and it's toxic,
13:51
Speaker 1: but as far as the fire breathing fuels go, it's
13:55
Speaker 1: one of the least toxic ones. Paraffin's actually used medicinally
13:59
Speaker 1: is a LA positive, which means that you can suffer
14:03
Speaker 1: anal seepage as a fire breather if you use paraffin
14:07
Speaker 1: as that's one of the side effects of paraffin laxative use.
14:13
Speaker 1: But that's not all right, never mind. Um. They both
14:17
Speaker 1: have kerosene in lamp oils another one. They both have
14:20
Speaker 1: high flash points, so they're a little bit safer, um,
14:23
Speaker 1: and they burn a low temperature but they're bright. Yeah,
14:25
Speaker 1: but they are smoky, and they do have a pretty
14:28
Speaker 1: nasty smell, and neither one of them is really safe
14:30
Speaker 1: to ingest um. And they do have toxins in the additive.
14:35
Speaker 1: So like you know, nothing's like perfect. No, I like
14:39
Speaker 1: choosing the lesser of the evils. I think there was
14:41
Speaker 1: a um A lamp oil that was colorless and odorless,
14:44
Speaker 1: but it turned out to be extremely carcinogenic. Carcinogenic because
14:50
Speaker 1: whoever was making this stuff used additives to make it
14:53
Speaker 1: colorless and odorless, and those things were very deadly. Isn't
14:56
Speaker 1: that weird? Yeah, that's weird. I mentioned Coleman fuel earlier.
15:00
Speaker 1: That's what I use. Like camping, a lot of camp
15:03
Speaker 1: stoves and stuff use common fuel. That's what pend you
15:05
Speaker 1: let uses for fire reading a k A white gas
15:08
Speaker 1: or lighter fluid or naptha and that has a low
15:11
Speaker 1: flash point. UM. So it's more volatile and its toxical
15:15
Speaker 1: course um and a lot of people say it is
15:20
Speaker 1: more dangerous inside with the kerosene over the common fuel.
15:24
Speaker 1: And that's a common brand name fuel by the way, right,
15:28
Speaker 1: But it's so it's almost like tile and all fuel
15:30
Speaker 1: or cleanex fuel. UM. So that we talked about avoiding
15:35
Speaker 1: alcohols in general. You got your fuel, you got your
15:39
Speaker 1: mouth at the right angle, and you get the miss
15:42
Speaker 1: going on. Now you need a flame source. Just look
15:45
Speaker 1: like a match, right, No, you'll catch your whole hand
15:48
Speaker 1: on fire. You want something that you can you can
15:51
Speaker 1: keep away from your hand. Uh So a torch. Usually
15:54
Speaker 1: there's actually torches that I think are made for this
15:57
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. You can make your own, but you
15:59
Speaker 1: want to be uh I should say. Fire breathers can
16:01
Speaker 1: make their own, but they want to be careful with
16:03
Speaker 1: the the materials they use. Like for example, let's say
16:09
Speaker 1: you had a lot of cotton and that was your
16:11
Speaker 1: that you were gonna dip in naptha. Right, makes sense,
16:15
Speaker 1: but the water of cotton is not going to stay there.
16:17
Speaker 1: You need to wrap it around with something. Well, you
16:19
Speaker 1: have to be careful what you wrap it around with.
16:21
Speaker 1: If you wrapped around with rope, it can break and
16:23
Speaker 1: fall into your mouth. If you're doing a fire eating trick. Um,
16:26
Speaker 1: same thing with like nylon rope. That stuff will melt
16:29
Speaker 1: and drip into your mouth and just burn until it
16:31
Speaker 1: feels like going out. Um. So, you want to be
16:34
Speaker 1: careful what you use. And from what I understand, you
16:37
Speaker 1: want to kind of pony up for the torch, the
16:40
Speaker 1: pre made torch that's designed by a professional not to
16:44
Speaker 1: burn your face off if you're gonna if you're gonna
16:46
Speaker 1: be a professional fire eater. You're not gonna cheap out
16:48
Speaker 1: on the torch, right, and I mean really, that's gonna
16:51
Speaker 1: be your most significant investment unless you have to pay
16:54
Speaker 1: somebody to teach you. Because how much is lamp oil?
16:57
Speaker 1: How much is your mouth? Your mouth is free, you know. Yeah, yeah,
17:01
Speaker 1: this is pretty low buying. I guess it is, but
17:04
Speaker 1: a high cost let you do it wrong. Well, let's
17:06
Speaker 1: talk about the hy uh well dangers in safety. There's
17:10
Speaker 1: one thing called fire eater pneumonia um, and that is
17:14
Speaker 1: a condition that they're prone to called hydrocarbon uh pneumonitis.
17:20
Speaker 1: Basically that's from inhaling fuel and they've nicknamed it fire
17:23
Speaker 1: eater pneumonia because it must just be a common thing
17:25
Speaker 1: in that trade. Yeah. Um, it can lead to coma.
17:28
Speaker 1: One of the signs of it is stupor um collapsed
17:31
Speaker 1: long You can also get a fluid build up in
17:35
Speaker 1: the lining of the lungs. It's not it's not good,
17:38
Speaker 1: no good. Um. That's not the only problem. We also
17:42
Speaker 1: talked about blowback, because if you think about it like
17:46
Speaker 1: you can, you can influence the direction of the flame,
17:49
Speaker 1: but you're incapable of controlling it, especially outdoors. So first
17:54
Speaker 1: of all, even without blowback, the wind can direct the
17:57
Speaker 1: flame in a different direction that you wanted to and
17:59
Speaker 1: all the sudden you or somebody you care about is
18:03
Speaker 1: on fire, or maybe someone you don't even like that much.
18:06
Speaker 1: But you don't want to be in the book for
18:07
Speaker 1: setting exactly, you can still be liable trees on fire.
18:10
Speaker 1: There's there's things that catch fire when you're fire breathing,
18:13
Speaker 1: if if even under the most perfect of circumstances. Uh,
18:18
Speaker 1: some of the lesser effects over time um skin irritation,
18:23
Speaker 1: ulcers in the stomach, gum disease in dry mouth, poisoning,
18:28
Speaker 1: and um general respiratory distress. Like if you're a pro
18:33
Speaker 1: fire breathering, you know it's it's not a normal thing,
18:36
Speaker 1: right to put this toxic fuel in your mouth and
18:38
Speaker 1: blow it back out, So over time it's gonna catch
18:40
Speaker 1: up to you. Yeah, and don't forget anal seepage. Who
18:43
Speaker 1: can that's another for using paraffin. But they do take
18:49
Speaker 1: a lot of safety precautions. Pale points out that they
18:52
Speaker 1: work with partners who are very adept at putting out fires. Um,
18:58
Speaker 1: they train them in how to put out, the tools,
19:00
Speaker 1: how to put out the person, how to put out
19:03
Speaker 1: the area around it if anything bad happens. And it's
19:06
Speaker 1: basically just an assistant there in case anything goes wrong
19:10
Speaker 1: with all of the accoutrement. Like fire A wet blanket, Yeah,
19:15
Speaker 1: like literally a wet blanket. I guess that's where the
19:18
Speaker 1: term came from. Fire breathing. Don't be a wet blanket. Uh.
19:22
Speaker 1: In this case, we want someone to be a wet
19:24
Speaker 1: blanket right at the right time. Um. And the person
19:26
Speaker 1: is not only good at extinguishing a tree or a
19:30
Speaker 1: loved one, Um, they're good at extinguishing the fire breather
19:34
Speaker 1: himself or herself. Um, and calling nine on one. Yeah,
19:39
Speaker 1: it's probably good idea. How the old cell phone handing.
19:41
Speaker 1: But you want to have someone you trust and who's
19:42
Speaker 1: not going to panic. Yeah. You also want to have
19:45
Speaker 1: a first aid kit and make sure you have everything
19:47
Speaker 1: you need. Um. You just don't drive up willy nilly.
19:50
Speaker 1: If you're a pro, You've got all this stuff squared away,
19:53
Speaker 1: You've talked to the local authorities, maybe the fire marshal.
19:56
Speaker 1: You've said, here's what we're gonna do, is it okay?
19:59
Speaker 1: Here's my fire plan? Um. One was saying like she
20:05
Speaker 1: contacts the local fire department or the local fire marshal
20:08
Speaker 1: and says, hey, I'm going to do this. Are we cool? Yeah?
20:11
Speaker 1: And then yeah, here's what happens if if things go
20:14
Speaker 1: out of control. That's that's the fire marshal says, ah, yeah,
20:18
Speaker 1: that looks good to me. Hey, Jimmy, pass a lasagna
20:21
Speaker 1: over here. Right, fire marshals are known for loving lasagna. Yeah, well,
20:26
Speaker 1: I think that's all those guys do is eat, right,
20:28
Speaker 1: eat lasagna? Well, just good food. Yeah, that's why people
20:31
Speaker 1: go into that business, right, I don't know, hang out
20:34
Speaker 1: with the dudes and eat good food. That Dalmatian that No,
20:38
Speaker 1: they're saving lives, buddy. We talked about where Dalmatians became
20:42
Speaker 1: associated with firefighting, right at some point we didn't. It
20:46
Speaker 1: wasn't stand alone. I wonder what it was. I can't remember.
20:51
Speaker 1: Uh So. Another thing you can do to minimize the
20:54
Speaker 1: effects of fuel on the body is to, um, you
20:57
Speaker 1: want to in between acts, you want to make sure
21:00
Speaker 1: all that fuel is cleaned off of your face and hands.
21:03
Speaker 1: Don't one forget any of that. I mean, like literally
21:05
Speaker 1: what they do is they blow, they put the torch
21:08
Speaker 1: down there, um, they wipe their mouth with a wet
21:13
Speaker 1: rag and then they spit whatever fuel remains in their
21:16
Speaker 1: mouth back into like the the fuel cup and wipe
21:19
Speaker 1: their mouth and hands again. And then that's one blow
21:23
Speaker 1: of the thing. That's one blow, ideally one breath. Uh.
21:27
Speaker 1: They also recommend um, or some of the tricks of
21:30
Speaker 1: the trade at least is to eat um like bread
21:33
Speaker 1: and drink milk and an an acid. Yeah, I'm just
21:36
Speaker 1: kind of funny anything about it. Pendela was saying, like
21:38
Speaker 1: the burps that you will have after this there are
21:42
Speaker 1: indescribable interesting and a little puff of smoke comes out
21:45
Speaker 1: or I think it's worse than that. That be the
21:47
Speaker 1: car smell and the taste of it are just horrible. Wow. Uh.
21:52
Speaker 1: There are associations, real professional associations. The North American Fire
21:56
Speaker 1: Artists Association and the National Fire Protection Association have guidelines
22:01
Speaker 1: for all this stuff with performance safety. So does Home
22:03
Speaker 1: of POI. M let's go ahead and get to the POI.
22:07
Speaker 1: So the POI um we didn't even mention it in
22:09
Speaker 1: the Maori episode, did we know? So? POI are two
22:14
Speaker 1: heavy balls on a string that you've seen like hula
22:17
Speaker 1: danswers um like swing and thanks to the centripy centripedal force.
22:24
Speaker 1: They maintain this distance, although it takes a lot of
22:26
Speaker 1: like agility and strengthen your arms to spin these things. Well.
22:31
Speaker 1: Somewhere along the way, some Maori said, hey, let's light
22:34
Speaker 1: these on fire because it will look really cool, and
22:36
Speaker 1: it does so POI are one of the implements you
22:40
Speaker 1: can use for fire arts. Yeah, it's a it's a
22:44
Speaker 1: it's not juggling, but it's almost it's sort of like juggling,
22:47
Speaker 1: you know, it's fire spinning. You can juggle with fire
22:50
Speaker 1: as this one person points out, pretty much any juggling
22:54
Speaker 1: prop you can catch, you can let fire. Yeah. And
22:57
Speaker 1: we talked about fire eating too, um, which is basically
23:02
Speaker 1: taking your torch or whatever. Um, you get your mouth
23:05
Speaker 1: really really wet with spittle, apparently so wet that you
23:09
Speaker 1: conform ast spit bubble very easily across your mouth when
23:12
Speaker 1: you open it, and then you put the torch in there,
23:15
Speaker 1: um and extinguish it, close your mouth around it without
23:19
Speaker 1: touching it. So that apparently is where all the practice
23:23
Speaker 1: comes in for fire eating, is you don't want the
23:25
Speaker 1: torch to touch anything inside your mouth, and when you
23:28
Speaker 1: close your lips to extinguish it. You don't want them
23:31
Speaker 1: to have to touch the torch itself. It's probably hot,
23:35
Speaker 1: it's very hot. Um. And then also if you have
23:37
Speaker 1: just recently dunked your torch, um, some of the fumes
23:41
Speaker 1: will stay in your mouth and catch fire, and you
23:43
Speaker 1: can hold fire in your mouth and have somebody light
23:45
Speaker 1: a cigarette or cigar or what have you off of it.
23:50
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. That's a that's a trick. Um. There are
23:53
Speaker 1: different ways of breathing fire, uh different, you know, depending
23:57
Speaker 1: on what kind of um plume you want. You can
24:02
Speaker 1: alter your mouth and how you blow the stuff out
24:04
Speaker 1: into different types of tricks like the basic pop or
24:08
Speaker 1: the volcano or the fire breathing from palm flame. Oh
24:15
Speaker 1: but that the old ground lifter or the old challenger
24:18
Speaker 1: classic fire breathing moves. And if you go to which
24:22
Speaker 1: one website was this probably home they have little video
24:25
Speaker 1: demonstrations of each one of these the around the world.
24:28
Speaker 1: The one beat weave connected, the shuffle to get the carousel,
24:34
Speaker 1: and you can just you know, they're all they're a
24:35
Speaker 1: little bit different, and I guess you know, if you're
24:38
Speaker 1: a fire breather, then you want to master each one
24:39
Speaker 1: of those. And there's a record chuck for the pillar,
24:43
Speaker 1: the straight up pillar of fire. Um, somebody exhale the
24:49
Speaker 1: twenty ft pillar of flame once. And it's all about
24:54
Speaker 1: breathing too. I don't know if we mentioned that. It's
24:56
Speaker 1: not just forming a mist like you have to do
24:59
Speaker 1: breathing ex sizes so you can take a huge deep
25:02
Speaker 1: breath first, because you can't breathe with that fuel in
25:04
Speaker 1: your mouth. You'll aspirate the vapors. Like. You have to
25:08
Speaker 1: be exhaling the entire time. Yeah, just exhale, So you
25:11
Speaker 1: have to be able to um take a deep breath
25:14
Speaker 1: and then exhale it at a steady rate or um
25:16
Speaker 1: control it however you want, and also atomize this fuel
25:20
Speaker 1: with your mouth. There's a lot to it. Yeah, it's
25:22
Speaker 1: not it. It isn't something that anybody can just do
25:25
Speaker 1: and know. It takes a lot of practice. Yeah, we've
25:28
Speaker 1: got should we go over someone more of these world records? Yeah,
25:31
Speaker 1: let's give these folks their due. Most flames blown in
25:34
Speaker 1: one minute by preacher uh mua dib in Italy in
25:41
Speaker 1: a minute that's like pooh pooh, pooh, pooh pooh pooh. Yeah?
25:45
Speaker 1: Was that the was that the rhythm? I don't know
25:48
Speaker 1: we'll get five at least most people at once two
25:52
Speaker 1: participants in an event in two thousand nine in the Netherlands.
25:56
Speaker 1: That seems very dangerous. Yeah, how about this one continuous
25:59
Speaker 1: fireflame okay nine point nine six eight seconds by Frederick
26:05
Speaker 1: Carlson in Sweden and November two thousand eleven. That's a
26:08
Speaker 1: long breath. Heck, yeah, that's a real long breath. And
26:12
Speaker 1: uh Antonio Restivo in January two twelve in Vegas breathe
26:18
Speaker 1: a plume twenty six ft five inches. So I sawt
26:23
Speaker 1: beaten out Antonio. Yeah, maybe you're else. Antonio is the
26:26
Speaker 1: one that or Antonio has a rival and they continually
26:32
Speaker 1: best each other by like six inches each year. It's
26:35
Speaker 1: his older sister. One of them dies of mouth cancer probably,
26:41
Speaker 1: And that's a nice plumber way to end this. Well,
26:44
Speaker 1: I think I want to remind everybody. Yeah, it's dangerous.
26:47
Speaker 1: It is very dangerous. Be careful out there. Yeah, and
26:50
Speaker 1: you know, burning, We've talked about burning. It's not a
26:53
Speaker 1: fun thing to go through. It's like it's not something
26:55
Speaker 1: you should be playing around with. That's what we think,
26:57
Speaker 1: that's what we hit upon is the worst way to die.
26:58
Speaker 1: I remember, Yeah, if you want to hit on a
27:00
Speaker 1: constant pain that won't go away, that morphine can't even
27:04
Speaker 1: take away, then burn yourself really badly. All right. I'm
27:09
Speaker 1: the one with the bummer ending. Huh. Hey if you're
27:11
Speaker 1: into that, so you got anything else? Got anything else?
27:15
Speaker 1: All right? If you want to learn more about fire
27:17
Speaker 1: breathing type fire breathing into the search bar how stuff
27:20
Speaker 1: works dot Com, it will bring up this awesome episode.
27:22
Speaker 1: And since I said awesome episode, that means it's time
27:25
Speaker 1: for a message break uh And another thing from us
27:33
Speaker 1: to you now is listener mail. Hey, before I do
27:40
Speaker 1: the listener mail, I think we've got a little something
27:41
Speaker 1: special to announce. We do. So you know our friends
27:44
Speaker 1: at COED, the Cooperative for Education. If you don't go
27:47
Speaker 1: back and listen to our part one into Guatemala Adventure. Um,
27:51
Speaker 1: but they help build literacy among school kids in Guatemala.
27:56
Speaker 1: And remember we had callouts for people to go and
27:58
Speaker 1: sponsor their scholar ship students. Well, they reached their goal
28:03
Speaker 1: for the two thousand fourteen school year. Awesome, and we
28:06
Speaker 1: said that we would read out all the stuff you
28:08
Speaker 1: should know listeners who donated. We have the last one
28:11
Speaker 1: of the year. Chaila Garcia Glenn Aw. Yes, so thank you, Chaila.
28:17
Speaker 1: I hope I'm saying your name correctly and all of
28:19
Speaker 1: you stuff. You should know listeners who went and helped
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Speaker 1: out students through co ED and if you're interested in
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Speaker 1: learning more about it and figure out how you can
28:26
Speaker 1: help out. No matter what time of year, what goal
28:29
Speaker 1: they've reached, they're always very happy to receive a donation
28:33
Speaker 1: or help of any kind. Sure you can go to
28:35
Speaker 1: co ED. You see c O E d U, see
28:39
Speaker 1: dot org and that will lead you to all of
28:42
Speaker 1: the places you need to go. Very cool. Alright, so
28:45
Speaker 1: listener mail, Yes, I am going to call this American
28:48
Speaker 1: werewolf in London. Dudes, guys who just listening to the
28:52
Speaker 1: Wearwolf podcasts. And I'm also a huge fan of that
28:55
Speaker 1: movie and I thought i'd share my experience of the
28:57
Speaker 1: first time I saw it when I was eight years old.
29:00
Speaker 1: It was a big family affair as we were the
29:02
Speaker 1: only ones who had a VHS player at the time.
29:04
Speaker 1: I remember that stuff, so my uncle and aunt came
29:07
Speaker 1: to watch it too. My uncle was my hero at
29:09
Speaker 1: the time as he was serving in the Navy and
29:11
Speaker 1: also the Navy boxing champ. He told me that if
29:13
Speaker 1: any werewolves came knocking on the door in the middle
29:15
Speaker 1: of the night. Uh that he would be safe as
29:17
Speaker 1: long as he stayed behind him. So anyway, we watched
29:20
Speaker 1: the movie. I loved every minute of it. I was
29:21
Speaker 1: only a little bit scared, not too much. But around
29:24
Speaker 1: midnight that night, I went to bed, safe in the
29:26
Speaker 1: knowledge to Uncle Allan was in the next room. Just
29:29
Speaker 1: then I started to drift off and I heard a
29:31
Speaker 1: blood curdling scream from outside my window, followed by shots
29:35
Speaker 1: of help and he's going to kill me. I was
29:38
Speaker 1: out of bed in a flash, getting ready to bravely
29:40
Speaker 1: run away hide behind Uncle Alan, when I see a
29:42
Speaker 1: figure running up to the front door through that weird
29:46
Speaker 1: eighties bubble glass that was all the rage back then.
29:49
Speaker 1: Then this figure starts frantically banging the door, shouting He's
29:51
Speaker 1: gonna kill me, He's gonna get me, He's gonna kill me. Naturally,
29:55
Speaker 1: I had brown underpants at this moment, as most eight
29:58
Speaker 1: year olds would after watching that movie and then hearing
30:01
Speaker 1: and seeing this person screaming through distorted shapes. By this time,
30:05
Speaker 1: my uncle, along with the rest of us, were up
30:08
Speaker 1: and he opened the door to see what all the
30:09
Speaker 1: fuss was about. I was expecting to see a bloodyed
30:12
Speaker 1: and torn to shreds victim of a werewolf attack. But
30:15
Speaker 1: it turns out it was one of our neighbors. I
30:18
Speaker 1: found out later I had mental health issues. I was
30:20
Speaker 1: having a delusion that he was being chased by monsters.
30:23
Speaker 1: It's pretty weird timing. Yeah, that took a really sad twist,
30:26
Speaker 1: you know, the night this kid sees this though, it's
30:29
Speaker 1: like bad, bad timing. Plus his neighbors like that bad
30:32
Speaker 1: off mentally, it is sad. But guys, we calmed him
30:37
Speaker 1: down and made him a nice cup of tea because
30:39
Speaker 1: in England that solves everything. And mom took him home
30:42
Speaker 1: when he was okay enough to think rationally. So they
30:45
Speaker 1: took care of the guy. And that is from Al
30:48
Speaker 1: who was now in Australia. Wow, that's a heck of
30:51
Speaker 1: a story. Yeah, it beats my werewolf in Lindon story.
30:56
Speaker 1: So I went to bed. Yeah it was pretty uneventful. Uh.
30:59
Speaker 1: If you have a story about something that we've talked about,
31:03
Speaker 1: I know that's vague and nebulous, but that's good. I
31:06
Speaker 1: mean that it's a wide net basically is what we've
31:08
Speaker 1: just cast. That's right. You can tweet to us at
31:11
Speaker 1: s y s K Podcast. You can join us on
31:14
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, You can
31:16
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and,
31:20
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31:22
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
31:29
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