The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known to its friends as DARPA, has announced their latest innovation: Instant fire suppression. The goal of the research project, which was part of a joint venture with Harvard University, was to find a better way to put out fires. Instead of conventional tactics, DARPA wanted a high-tech tool that would attack the very physical make up of fire using acoustics and electromagnetism.

Today in horribly frightening news that could happen to you but you can’t do anything about, Kim Grice, 29, went in for routine cyst-removal surgery, and her face spontaneously caught on fire while under the knife. Doctors said they’ve never seen anything like it before, and still aren’t sure what caused the fire. Grace was rushed to the South Alabama Burn Unit via helicopter, where they treated her second-degree burns.

According to Bloomberg, Sony has issued a voluntary recall for about 1.6 million flatscreen televisions in the Bravia line because of a slight defect that makes them somewhat more likely to melt or catch fire than your average TV, but just slightly. Apparently, the recall was sparked by an incident in September when a Japanese owner discovered his Sony flatscreen started a small fire. Eleven such incidents have occurred in Japan since 2008. So far, no one has been hurt.

The blame supposedly lies on a faulty backlighting component that can overheat and melt the top of the affected models. This isn’t the first time that Sony has had to recall things for overheating. In hopes of remedying the situation, Sony is sending out inspectors to check out the TVs and replace the part if need be. If a replacement part is needed, Sony will offer TV rental during the repair, but they won’t offer any replacement TVs or refunds.

It’s no surprise that you can make all kinds of crazy, intricate and ridiculous things out of LEGOs. This, however, marks the first time that I’ve ever seen a LEGO model literally play with fire. This dragon, built by Aaron Amatnieks, has some crazy internal piping that lets it be the coolest lighter, candle or flamethrower you ever seen, made out of LEGOs. It’s a small miracle that the blocks don’t immediately melt or set on fire, but given the force at which this little guy is belching up those flames, I can sort of see how he’s pulling it off. I think we may be coming up on the limit of new things that can be done with LEGOs. Quick, somebody get working on something that involves corrosive acid.

This is nifty: A Japanese fire extinguisher called the SAT119 can be thrown like a grenade to put out small fires, shattering to disburse both a “diluted extinguishing agent” and a mix of carbon dioxide and ammonium gas to snuff the flames before they spread. The container itself is made of fragile plastic, not glass, so its not likely to slice up the thrower. It’s not recommended for use on large fires, however.

When ampoule is thrown at the fires the chemical will disperse over the burning area. At the same time, the extinguishing chemicals would generate ammonium gas. Water evaporation would cool down the temperature of combustibles (cooling effectiveness) while ammonium gas would create a fire retardation effect that restrains the burning chain reaction. At the same time, one of the main ingredients for SAT119 and carbon dioxide produced by heat would suffocate oxygen and restrain combustibles from burning (cutting oxygen).

Demo video below:

Attn. Ghost Rider: The bike-makers at Neil Pryde had an employee ride through a parking garage on a bicycle with burning wheels. Just like in the movies about cars/motorcycles/other vehicles with burning wheels (usually not bicycles), it actually leaves a trail of flames in its wake.

(via Gizmodo)

A spinning column of fire several meters tall was recently spotted in São Paulo, Brazil, stopping traffic and torching dry fields in the midst of the country’s devastating wildfires. Fire tornados are a rare natural phenomenon; according to Wikipedia, they’re most common during wildfires, when a warm updraft carries the ground-level flames upwards, where they proceed under some circumstances to start whirling like a tornado, usually for just a few minutes, but sometimes for as many as twenty.

Video below:

Read on...

This video looks like something straight out of an action movie, but it’s deadly serious: For more than a week wildfires have continued to sweep through Russia, leaving thousands homeless and killing at least 40 people. The men in this video volunteered to help the residents of Tamboles Village fight the fire; by the time they realized that the village couldn’t be saved, the main road out of town was blocked by flames, and, surrounded on all sides, they plowed through it to escape.

Warning: Lots of (totally understandable given the situation) Russian swearing in the video below.

We’re not joking. Check out the videos after the jump if you don’t believe us.

Jonathan Alberico (deviantART alias Macabre151) has built two firing models of steampunk inspired weapons, Doris and Black Betty.

“Doris” is a rifle, or, to be more appropriate, a blunderbuss that can be loaded with either a magazine of four ping-pong balls or a barrel-full of confetti.

Also in Alberico’s deviantART gallery is his “Black Betty,” a handgun equipped with two 40 caliber balls. If you don’t have any projectiles for it, it can also simply ignite flash paper. Which allows it to shoot fire.

The video is after the jump. What are you waiting for?