Contest: Cigars ablaze!

[buzz]

Ok lets get back on track.

This is a tuff one .but here is my guess. the damn heat detector alarm will never go off.

Now let me show my work,

Buzz may have some cheap ass watered down Tequila in the house but nothing that would work as a decent accelerant, and even if he did receive a bottle of 100+ proof Tequila for Christmas it didn't last threw the day.
But lets assume the ex-girlfriend provided her own Tequila and it did make a good accelerant.
Now the 150 or so cheap ass Philly blunts that Buzz is going to say were top of the line montecristo's "at least to the insurance company" are in a pile burring away at 250 BTU/s and the heat detector is around 11 feet away give or take a foot.

The detector which buzz claims is set to go off at 135 degrees and the room temperature is 75 F so you would need a 60 degree or so increase in temperature 11 feet away.
allowing for the cooling effect of the room air temperature, the distance the detector is away from the fire, allowing for the accelerant to burn off and evaporation of the high quality 100+ tequila.

i really don't think it would go off.

Besides Buzz never replaced the batteries in the heat detector, some how the $ his wife gave him for batteries was spent obtaining the Philly blunts and cheap tequila.

- don't tell people about my blunts, no one will want to win!

By the way, I thought you may have had an spelling-error-free post here for the first time ever... but then I read it again.

-Buzz

[ashauler]

- don't tell people about my blunts, no one will want to win!

By the way, I thought you may have had an spelling-error-free post here for the first time ever... but then I read it again.

-Buzz

Take it easy, he just got threwn off a bit.

[bigwhiteash]

Not like he through gasoline on a fire, or anything..

[Mangyrat]

I needed a good laugh ,

[dr. cox]

The better question is how long does it take for the fire to be put out...let me take a stab at that.

-The department is 3 miles away.
-Its presumably late at night so there will be little traffic.
-The speed limit around your house is 30 mph.
-The average "out the door time" is 45 seconds.
-Fire grows 10 times in size a minute.

So the truck arrives in 2.5 minutes roughly. They hook up to the hydrant and lay attack hose in 2 minutes. They find the fire in 3 minutes (lets assume its upstairs and everyone is assumed to be out of the house by now, so searching will not be a main priority and slow you down.) The sticks take up about 2 square feet (rough guess) initially. By the time the fire is ready to be put out the fire will be about 140 square feet (once again roughly, my math skills suck.) Flowing 150 gallons per minute (pretty standard amount for a normal attack line) it would take me as nozzle man all of ten seconds to put it out. So a total time of about 7 minutes and 40 seconds to put it out.

I think the putting it out math is way more fun...and its all I know. And I know this contest is for people with 50+ posts but I felt special actually knowing about something so I felt moved to post. Congrats on passing the test, I don't know how engineering tests are but just normal firefighting state tests are absolute bitches...but thankfully I passed mine first try.

[SirPuffsAlot]

Here's my stab at it. I subtracted the temp of the room (75 F) from the temp the alarm is set to detect (135 F) which gave me a "Temperature Bridge" or "TB" of 60 degrees. I then divided the 100 RTI of the detector by the 60 degree TB which brings us to a 1.66..."ResponseTime" or "RP". I then took into account that the ex was most likely raised in a barn (she had to be if she dated you) and left the door and window open, which caused a severe draft. So I added 15% to my 1.66 RP to compensate for windchill factor and that makes the real-time RP 1.91. Now take the 250 BTU of the flame and multiply that by 1.91=477.5, and divide that by 60. This gives you your answer which is 7.958 seconds. I've included an illustration, which should clear up any questions you have about how I figured this out.

[buzz]

I then took into account that the ex was most likely raised in a barn (she had to be if she dated you) and left the door and window open, which caused a severe draft.

Nice catch, I was wondering if someone would figure out the draft issue...

Oh, and that picture is simply amazing - you qualify even without the 50 posts just due to the illustration!

-Buzz

[SirPuffsAlot]

Nice catch, I was wondering if someone would figure out the draft issue...

Oh, and that picture is simply amazing - you qualify even without the 50 posts just due to the illustration!

-Buzz

I didn't even realize that I was below the post requirement until I finished the drawing and there was no turning back at that point!

[badwhale]

Thanks for the contest Buzz. I was about to post this, and I accidentally closed the browser

Anyway,

Volume of 1 cigar = (50/64)^2*pi/4 * 5" = 2.395in^3
Volume of pile of peach backwoods soaked in tequila = 2.395*150=359.3in^3 or 0.208cf of flammable material
Therefore, the pile emits 51.98BTU / second @ steady state (whatever that means)

A BTU is defined as the amount of energy required to raise one pound of WATER 1 degree.

Because the room is full of air, and not water, this is where my brain curls up into the fetal position and guesses 299 seconds.


Will